Here's some photos I took while starting to fit a Niedner buttplate to a stock. The rifle will be a trim .22 sporter, and it is my first time using one of these buttplates. I've done several Winchester-style buttplates, but not this thinner, smaller Niedner plate.
I first cut the pitch angle of the butt with a miter saw, then marked down on the wood the drop-at-heel, cast-off and toe-out dimensions I've figured for the buttplate. A #49 rasp was handy for chewing the concave curve of the buttplate out of the flat sawn butt. Then once it was rougly fitted, I finally started digging in with chisels and scrapers to start inletting it into the wood. I use the slow but sure method brushing thinned inletting black onto the buttplate to show me where to remove wood. Brush on inletting black, press the buttplate onto the wood, remove, chisel/scrape, re-brush, press on again, on and on and on until the gaps are closed.
Because there is a lot of hard/soft spots between the growth rings in this wood, I've been constantly stropping my chisels to keep them sharp enough to cut cleanly across the wood grain. Otherwise they won't budge, then will slip and skip on the surface or shear wildly into the grain. I've just been using a 1/4" paring chisel and 1/4" flat scraper, plus a 1/2" paring chisel for removing the bulk of the wood.
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I like to sit down and have the stock clamped vertically in front of me so I can easily see and carve around the buttplate inletting.
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Once you start seeing a black border forming from the inletting black, you're getting close. It's a good feeling after many many fittings without much progress. It's easy to get frustrated, blindly remove a bunch of material, and misjudge the contour of the buttplate in the process and create gaps, setting yourself back.
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It is about 90% fitted here:
![Image]()
I first cut the pitch angle of the butt with a miter saw, then marked down on the wood the drop-at-heel, cast-off and toe-out dimensions I've figured for the buttplate. A #49 rasp was handy for chewing the concave curve of the buttplate out of the flat sawn butt. Then once it was rougly fitted, I finally started digging in with chisels and scrapers to start inletting it into the wood. I use the slow but sure method brushing thinned inletting black onto the buttplate to show me where to remove wood. Brush on inletting black, press the buttplate onto the wood, remove, chisel/scrape, re-brush, press on again, on and on and on until the gaps are closed.
Because there is a lot of hard/soft spots between the growth rings in this wood, I've been constantly stropping my chisels to keep them sharp enough to cut cleanly across the wood grain. Otherwise they won't budge, then will slip and skip on the surface or shear wildly into the grain. I've just been using a 1/4" paring chisel and 1/4" flat scraper, plus a 1/2" paring chisel for removing the bulk of the wood.
I like to sit down and have the stock clamped vertically in front of me so I can easily see and carve around the buttplate inletting.
Once you start seeing a black border forming from the inletting black, you're getting close. It's a good feeling after many many fittings without much progress. It's easy to get frustrated, blindly remove a bunch of material, and misjudge the contour of the buttplate in the process and create gaps, setting yourself back.
It is about 90% fitted here:
