Let's Build a Traditions St. Louis Hawken | How-To Series Part 3: Dry fitting your hardware

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The dry fitting process is just doing an initial assembly and fitting of all of the kit parts to make sure everything lines up the way we want. This is a beginners kit, so 95% or more of the inletting is done for us, but there is still some that will be done, making for an excellent learning experience. 

First up is inserting the lock into the inlet. You’ll want to be careful during this process because there isn’t much wood left in this area on the stock. The lock should snap in with a bit of a push.

Now on the other side of the stock, we want to make sure the lock bolt holes line up. Hold your stock up to a window or light and confirm that you can easily see through each hole. Taking our lock bolts now, we’re going to make sure the holes fit the bolts and the lock bolt washers. 

To keep track of your hardware, put any small pieces you aren’t using into a plastic bin away from your bench so you can’t spill them. 

You lock bolt washers might be too large to fit in their holes, so some inletting might need to be done. Using your half-round file, go around the inner edge of each washer hole and remove just enough wood to allow for those lock bolt washers to fit snugly. This will be the first of your real fitting/inletting work on this kit. Take it slowly, what works here will work for the other pieces as well. When you get close, gently tapping each washer with a non-marring mallet might be enough to get the washers fitted. Be careful though, you don’t want to split or damage the stock. When your washers are flush with the stock, you are ready to put in your lock bolts and make sure they thread correctly. 
Read the full article at nmlra.org/news/stlouishawken-03

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