Over a year ago, I shared pictures and questions about a new school rifle I had recently gotten. This is a link to the original thread:

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In it, I showed pictures of the front of the stock and the poorly fitted front band. I had a lot of great comments and advice about what I had and the front band especially from Butlersrangers who taught me the importance of proper fit and finish of official armory work that we should be seeing with a Krag. I was new to Krag collecting and did not understand this at the time. I spent a lot of time reading old posts and looking at lots of Krags in references and ones I have collected since then.

It looks like my school rifle had a proper cutdown front stock but someone force fit an unaltered band over the end of the stock with the filler piece and severely damaged the wood. The broken stock was glued poorly and sold in the condition that I showed in the original post pictures.

I could not find a replacement school rifle front band that fit the barrel at that section, which has different dimensions from the normal front band. An altered front band is mandrel shaped to fit the barrel properly.

So, I have slowly, in my spare time, worked each aspect of this school rifle's damaged front stock to recreate the correct pieces for a nice repair. I did use a mandrel, which was actually an old damaged barrel, and made a beautifully fitting band, got a nice old piece of walnut floor board and recreated the damaged piece of the front of the stock, with a correct filler piece, and glued them together. Then I refinished the wood the best I could to try to match the original finish.

Following are pictures of stages of the job. It wasn't easy doing the fine fitting work to be aware of the quality of fit and finish Butlersrangers pointed out it should have.

My school rifle looks tons better. Thanks a bunch to all who gave me good advice!!

More pictures:

thank you.

Definitely a labor of love for Krags! It was a lot of time and effort. I'm sure lots of others have done similar work as good as or better than what I did.

Thanks.

EXCELLENT workmanship, but I have to ask, WHY on earth did you go cross-grain, and then cross-grain again, like a parquet floor?

Real original end grains (both stocks and plugs where installed) will soak up stain, oil, dirt, etc. to where they just look "dark", almost varnished.

Sorry to be negative, but at my advanced age, I calls 'em like I sees 'em, and am TRULY puzzled at your choice.

Whig
Very nice restore work.  Dang, and a first time!
I wasn't smart enough to catch the cross-grain.  Ha
Vic

Thanks. I know some small details I would do differently next time but the original condition was deplorable. I appreciate Dick's comment about the grain except I have to admit the Parquet flooring somewhat predates my personal flooring experience, so, I had to look it up.

I actually like the look of the Parquet floor!

But, thanks, Dick, for treating me like one of the family. When I'm 30 years or so older, I'm sure I'll be looking extra careful at those details.  Ha!

Thanks.