The foundation of Reid's new stock drying cabinet is a sturdy shipping crate.

I've done a lot of dumb things over the years. Although I'm not proud of them, most of 'em weren't really too bad. And I did learn from them. The really dumb mistakes, the ones that are embarrassing, are the ones I've repeated! Here's one in particular.

Just last week I was working away in my shop cutting up some old fence boards with my bandsaw. Hanging nearby from the ceiling was an M1A stock I was refinishing. I was concentrating on my work with the saw, so I wasn't paying all that much attention to the stock. That all changed when I swung a board around and hit it! Oh, did that hurt! After all the time and work of sanding, sealing, and applying finish to the stock, I carelessly slammed an old fence board into it.

I did something very similar years ago in my first gunsmithing shop. Like most gunsmiths of the time, I had the stocks hanging by wires from hooks in the ceiling. I don't recall the exact details of how I did it, but I do remember that I knocked one down. It landed on the toe of the butt and broke off a nice big piece of wood. As I worked to repair and refinish that stock I swore that would never happen again.

Within a day or so I built a drying cabinet. It was just a simple plywood box that allowed me to safely hang a half-dozen or more stocks. I installed a small light bulb to heat the air in the cabinet to help the finishes dry a bit faster. This first cabinet was not fancy, but it served me well for years. And it eliminated further accidents with stocks!

I've built other drying cabinets over the years, and I have improved the design. When I moved into my current shop, however, building a drying cabinet was something I just never could get around to doing. That all changed last week.

A tight-fitting door is very important, so Reid fashioned one from a piece of laminated pine board.

If you do any stock finishing, you need a drying cabinet. It will provide a safe and secure place to hang a stock while the finish dries. It also provides better control of the temperature to speed drying and curing of the finish. And you can almost eliminate the possibility of bits of dust or lint settling on the finish.

Space in my current shop is severely limited, and I seldom have more than two or three stocks to be refinished at any given time. Consequently, my drying cabinet can be fairly small. I received some equipment earlier in the year, and it was shipped in a very sturdy plywood box. I wasn't sure what I would do with the box, but it was just too darn nice to throw away. The gunsmithing gods must have been whispering in my ear because now I knew exactly what to do with that box!

The box measures 15 inches wide by 15 inches deep by 55 inches high. My box is made of 1/2-inch plywood over a frame of 2x4s, but when you build your cabinet, adjust the dimensions to fit your available space as well as your needs. If you never work on more than one stock at a time, it doesn't make much sense to build a cabinet that would hold six or seven or more stocks.

A Tight-Fitting Door Is Critical
When you build your cabinet, construct a door that will close securely. You want to keep out the dust and lint that every shop creates. The first step is to use well-fitted hinges. It's also important to have some type of lock that will hold the door tightly against the cabinet when it is closed. On this cabinet I used two draw catches that exert quite a bit of pressure on the door. Also, because the door is so important, I purchased a piece of 3/4x16x72-inch pine board to use instead of the plywood box lid. I placed three simple strap hinges on the box to support and secure the door. The door was light, so this was really overkill on my part. You could probably get away with using just two smaller hinges.

Even though I took quite a bit of care in fitting the door, it still was not a perfect match. I used 1/4-inch thick by 3/4-inch wide poly-foam self-sticking weather sealing tape around the inside of the door. I bought a roll that was 17 feet long at my local hardware store. With this in place, the door sealed perfectly with no gaps.