Bitfrost - I sorry to here about the stud pulling out. Although I am not familiar with the stock you have, I am very familiar with putting threaded fasteners into particle board type materials. There are a few things you can do.
- Drill the holes larger and epoxy hard wooded dowels into the stock and then re-drill the holes. Keep in mind that you can use alcohol to clean up epoxy and you can tape around the area you are gluing to keep the epoxy off areas and make clean up easier. You might be able to epoxy the piece of the stock that ripped and you can use Lamp Black artist oil paint to color the epoxy - a little goes a long way - use to much and it will take longer for the epoxy to cure.
- Install brass insert the type used for furniture. They have a course thread on the out side and a machine screw thread on the inside that will allow you to put a pan head or socket head cap screw in. The best way I have found to install the insert is to first drill for slightly over the minimum threaded diameter and then counter drill down slightly just .010 - .020 inch (.25 - .50 mm) smaller in diameter than the major thread diameter to allow the insert to start to thread straight before it begins to bit into the meat of the stock material. That way the insert wont tear out the surface material. It might also help to thread the insert on to a threaded shaft made from a screw that you have removed the head from and chuck the threaded shaft with the insert installed into a drill press or hand drill to help you get it started straight. You will need a jam nut to keep the insert from spinning and you might need to use the nut with a socket wrench to finish installing the insert.
- This is the way I installed the rail on my HW100 and will probably be the way I will install it on the BobCat MkII when (if) it gets here (am I sounding impatient?) I used T-Nuts - with or without the pointed barbs - if it has the barbs cut them as short as possible so only a little of the barb potion sticks up. I located the holes from the side of the rail as you did and drilled a small hole thru the stock and perpendicular to the rails mounting surface. This will give you a location to drill a hole just slightly smaller than the outside diameter of the threaded portion of the t-nut for a press fit when installed. Now, here I understand that the FX stocks have a rubbery covering on them and I'm thinking you can do a couple of things where you are going to install the t-nut which would be under the air reservoir. The t-nuts have a flange on then that are round - the stock under the reservoir I believe has a concaved radius - you can cut the sides of the flanges of the t-nut to make them oblong so they will fit better in the channel of the stock. I'm thinking when you torque the rail screws the t-nut might compress into the rubber enough to not be a problem. Or you could cut around the t-nut with an exacto knife and remove that portion of the rubber under the t-nut. Another option might be to not trim the t-nut and counter bore slightly larger than the t-nut with a Forstner bit to allow the t-nut to sit flat. If you do the last option you will what to counter bore BEFORE you drill for the threaded portion of the t-nut.
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Sorry for being long winded - I hope that helps - KZ
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