Checkering: A Book of Checkering for Beginners

This book is designed to be the ideal teaching tool for any novice who wants to learn the art of gunstock chekering.

Sherman L. Mays has over forty years of stock work under his belt. He has taught people to checker in person, so he understands what you need to see and learn to become an accomplished artisan. First he tells you what tools you will need, not only for checkering but for holding the work for best results.

Stockmaker Jerry Fisher said, "The stock is unfinished until its checkered." You should learn to checker gunstocks so that noone is ever allowed to finish your work. Once you learn to checker; a stock without this final touch will seem naked to your eyes. Checkering improves a plain wood stock, but is is a true enhancment to high grade wood.

If you have nobody to mentor you in checking, thats OK, because Sherman's easy comfortable voice comes through in this text book. You will feel like he is right there in the shop helping you improve your skills everytime you sit down to practice.

As you progress in experience you will find yourself going back to this book over and over to pick the tricks you missed the first time around. Sherm's commentary will save you from common mistakes and help you to do quality work. This book is every bit as much a tool as the cutting tools you will use to checker your stocks.

Mays covers everything from cutting your first line to recutting old stocks and of course the ultimate in custom patterns. If you put in the time practicing, Mays will guide you to success.

Ilustration of this book is profuse, with 298 full color photos to guide you.

176 pages

Sherman was born in Southern California and raised in the agricultural area of the Northern Sacramento Valley where hunting the canals and rice fields with a single shot Winchester bolt action rifle brought about the love of guns and hunting. But it wasn't until he was in the Army that he sought to explore stock work and checkering and began learning his chosen craft. Now, some forty years later, he is identifying the problems he had in learning, and with his writing and illustrations, hopes to assist others in not having to make the same mistakes. Working in his small shop in Manchester, TN, he explains his cluttered work space as organized chaos, but knows where most everything is. His three ring binders full of tracings of checkering on shotguns and rifles reflect a long history of his interest, and ability to duplicate factory checkering on many makes, models and grades of firearms he has come across. An active supporter of new shooters, he is a constant fixture at SCTP, NSSA and ATA AIM competitions, offering assistance on stock fitting and modifications.