What about stock finish

[Douglas Blair]

Stock finish has really gave some new builders a fit with all the plastic stuff on the market today that a clerk would recommend. I like to make my own finish out of boiled linseed oil and spar varnish 50/50 mix. It is a lot like Tru-Oil and leaves a depth to the stock. For stain like on a light piece of wood I use Cordovan leather dye cut down to about 20% strength with alcohol. This way you can apply more coats to you get it as dark as you want. To try and use this stuff full strength and you will end up with almost a black stock, and it is a bear to get back off as it goes into the wood. I have heard the sun would fade this stain out but I have yet to see it done.

[Birddog6]

My favorite finish on a rifle is Tung Oil. I put on lots of coats by hand & rub it out & do it over & over & over. About 20 + coats & you have a deep finish & it is really nice & the grain depth is remarkable. Great caution must be taken on rubbing them out & not messing up the carvings & edges, so it may take alot longer to do a finish tham most guys, but that is what it takes to get it to what I want. Most don't want to put that much time in a finish, and that is fine, to each his own way.... I prefer a soft hand rubbed finish, & don't really care for gloss finishes but some want them that way so I do them at times. Alot of the rifles I build guys want to hunt with in inclimate weather with them & want a real durable waterproof finish so I use Tru-Oil for these. I don't like to use linseed oil at all, PC or not, I just don't like using it or its upkeep.
Every time I build a rifle I buy New finish & I use the old stuff left over to seal green wood & etc. to prevern cracking & make it dry slower.

For stains I have used quite a few different ones, but I like Danglers stains the best of all of them. My next would probably be leather dyes. I probably have 20 dif stains here & always end up back with the Danglers or leather dies & alcohol types.

www.custommuzzleloaders.com

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[Packdog]

I have only finished 2 with Tru-Oil, 1 with tung oil, and 1 with boiled linseed oil. I by far like the looks of tung oil. The linseed oil is still a little sticky feeling? The tru-oil is very durable finish. Made it thru a hunting season and it still looks good but it is very glossy. I like the low gloss look on wood myself. I think it adds contrast between the wood and metal. As far as stain? I think that aqua fortis is hard to beat for curly maple but what a pain! Hard to find, Hard to use, impossible to know what color you will have, and who knows what it will look like in 20 years. I like the ease of Danglers or Laurel Mt stains. No offense meant to anyone using AQ. I just can't figure it out.

Packdog

[DaveK]

I have used Boiled Linseed Oil and I just cannot beleive that it is an original finish. It never seems to dry hard and many of the old guns I have here, do have what appears to be an orginal finish and it is hard. I have used lots of tung oil and I like it! I also have used allot of Tru-Oil and find it very good as well. I love the touch up ability of both of these finishes. For stain, I too like Dangler's. I am sure there are other good stains, but I think the alcohol based stains are more to my liking.

[Doc]

I have been using B/C Tru-Oil for years. I knock the gloss off with 0000 steel wool. I also use their sealer under the Tru-Oil. Fills the pores in the wood right up. I have tried linseed oil, and I agree with Packdog, it never seemed to dry. Stayed tacky feeling. Just my $.02.
Keep Yer Powder Dry
Doc Will

[Doc]

OOOPPS,
Sorry thats DaveK I agree with on the not drying linseed oil.
Keep Yer Powder Dry
Doc Will

[Douglas Blair]

When you mix linseed oil with spar varnish the linseed oil in it will dry. I agree that pure linseed won't dry completely and always feels tacky. Like I said I mix mine about 50/50. I have used Dangler's stain but find myself going back to what Hacker used. If you use Tru-Oil you can do the finish any way you want. You can copy a high gloss like is on a Weatherby or an oil finish or anything in between. If you want a dull finish after the last coat has dried say for a few weeks. Rub it down with a rubbing compound or rotten stone, then rub off the compound with a soft cloth. If you want a shiny finish you use a sheen conditioner after the rubdown with the rubbing compound. The rubbing compound takes the rough surface off and makes the finish flat smooth.

[Birddog6]

I have some polish that I use on Brass & G.Slver on knife handles & found out it also does wonderful on the gun stocks with Tru-Oil. I rub my Tru-oil til dry & it is not as glossy this way, then when the stock is dry & I am done with the stock, let it sit 2-3 days & rub it down with this polish & it will dull it ever so slightly & give it a soft gloss finish.

www.customflintlocks.com

[Fatdutchman]

Greetings! My first post here!

The problems that you all are having with boiled linseed oil is that you don't actually have boiled linseed oil. The can may say that, but they are lying. It has not been boiled, and has had an inferior drying agent added to it. Genuine boiled linseed oil has actually been boiled with Lead Carbonate (or another type of drier...I hear "red lead" works well) added as the drier. This stuff actually WILL dry. It will NEVER dry hard, however. All it will do is dry to a stiff gummy consistency. Resins are added to make varnish. This makes it hard when it is dry. With a boiled linseed oil finish, you don't want any left on the outside surface of the wood, since even if it is dry, it will feel soft and creepy. Currently, I am out of a good oil varnish, and eventually, I'm gonna have to get around to boiling some up....very unpleasant (and dangerous) work.

Chris Immel

[Birddog6]

Chris: Great to hear from you ! So you are saying to get the "Real" Boiled Linseed Oil, no doubt you have to make it, and you rub it in well & leave no excess on the surface. How may coats or this & how long in between applications ?
Also you mention boiling it, I surmise it has to be done on a electric stove (no flames) and where do I come up with lead carbonet or red lead ? What is the mixture ratio ? Couple of lead round balls won't work ? ha ha !

Is the rifle you posted on the Longrifles forum finished in linseed oil ? That has a nice soft looking finish to it. I like that much more than a glossy finish.

www.custommuzzleloaders.com

[OlFlinter]

Chris: Welcome to the forum. I feel your knowledge will be a great asset to all here.

Do you know of a place we can purchase the Real boiled linseed oil (rather than fake stuff) or would one have to make their own ?

Possibly someone into the rifle building makes it & can sell it ?

[Douglas Blair]

Hey guys, correct me on this if I'm wrong. I have heard that "boiled linseed" isn't actually boiled but a treatment of some sort which makes the oil dry. I can't remember where I heard this but think it was in the muzzleloader's handbook written by Sam Fadala.

[OlFlinter]

Doug: That is what Chris was saying. What we are actually getting is not the real McCoy, but a chemically treated substitute.

[Douglas Blair]

But I thought the real McCoy always has been a chemically treated substitute. And "boiled" linseed oil was never really boiled.

[Fatdutchman]

To make the genuine article, you can use the "boiled" linseed oil that you buy at the hardware store, or "raw" linseed oil, which I haven't seen available in quite a while, or you can buy the expensive, "artsy" cold pressed linseed oil. All this I got from Eric Kettenburg, by the way.

He uses a Sand bath in the forge, but I don't have a forge and a sand bath takes FOREVER to get hot enough to boil the container inside, so I put it on a gas burner. An electric burner should work also. Use something like an enameld steel pot that is of good size and only boil about a pint at a time. Make sure that you have the actual lid to fit the pot for putting out any fires that may erupt. And, of course, do it out in the back yard far away from anything that will catch fire, as the flames will rise about 6 feet off of a burning pan of oil... trust me. Needless to say, make durn sure that your face is not over top of the pan at any time, or even anywhere near it. Make durn sure also that there is NO oil dripping down the side of the pot EVER, for what should be obvious reasons. (am I scaring you yet?) Once all safety precautions are in place, you can pour about a pint of linseed oil into the pan and place the pan on the burner, and stir with a stick. The heat should be something like a "medium" heat. You need to get the oil to come to a slow, rolling boil. DO NOT let it foam up much, and if you see it beginning to foam up, turn down the heat, or even turn it off, because it will tend to foam up and overflow the pot. This is really not as much of a concern as it may seem, as it is easy to keep it at that slow, rolling boil, but you have to be CAREFUL. When you have it going like it ought to be, you can add a small bit of lead carbonate, which is a white powder and used to be used not only as a drier, but also as the main white colored paint pigment. www.sinopia.com sells the lead carbonate and lots of other stuff as well. I think that it is supposed to be a teaspoon, but can't recall. It's only about enough to fill a thimble. When this is added, the oil will foam a little and it will change color from the familiar yellow to a orangy-brown. The smell will also change (and not for the better). You'll be able to tell. Now, you SHOULD boil this stuff like this for about 2 hours....that's right, 2 hours. So far, all I have been able to stand is about an hour or so. It works fine, it's just that the longer that it boils, the more it oxidizes and the shorter the drying time when you put it on a stock. Now, Eric recommends putting a little turpentine in the solution (before you start) but I will recommend against it. Turpentine has a low flash point and boiling it is extremely dangerous.

When you are done boiling the stuff, turn off the heat and set the pot aside to cool a bit. Don't let it cool off completely, you want it to be "warm" but NOT HOT. When the oil is still warm and fluid, pour it into a mason jar (the reason you don't want it hot...it will break the jar...again, trust me), and THEN you can add turpentine, as much as you like. It is necessary, as the oil will be VERY THICK without it. A pint of oil might make almost two pints of finished product, once turpentine is added.

To make varnish out of this oil, resins can be added while the oil is boiling, and while I don't have any specific recipies at hand, some of the easiest ones to do use rosin and gum mastic (chios tears). These will both melt and dissolve quite easily in the oil (the rosin will melt perhaps better than the mastic). Some recipies calling for copal require melting the copal in a separate pot and pouring that into the oil, as the boiling oil is not enoug to melt the copal. I don't really care to do this, myself, as the process is complicated enough as it is.

This will make an oil or varnish that will dry in several hours of sunlight exposure (it absolutely HAS to have sunlight), as oppose to weeks, months, or never, with store bought oil.

The gun that I did for Flintman on the longrifle board ( www.americanlongrifles.com ) has a linseed oil finish...actually, it is an oil varnish, as there is a good amount of rosin in it, but not enough to make a hard surface varnish (I was still experimenting with the amounts of resin I needed). I thin down the first two or three coats heavily with turpentine, soak the stock, let it sit for a few minutes and WIPE OFF THE EXCESS. There should be none on the surface of the wood. After each application, set it in the sun to dry. As it sits in the sun, particularly if it is really hot, the oil may tend to rise up out of the end grain. Keep a watch on it and simply wipe it off with your fingers. When it stops doing this (and you can no longer smell the stuff), it is dry, and you can do it over again.

For the last application, I don't thin it so much (turpentine is always necessary to some extent), rub it on with my hands and leave a thin "coat" on the surface. If I wipe it off, I will end up sucking it out of the grain, and I will never get the grain filled this way. Set this out and let it get partially dry and tacky. Take a coarse cloth like burlap or something, and cut off all the oil from the surface of the stock using a shoe-shine motion. This will (or should) get all of it off the surface, while leaving the oil in the grain. Rub in all the little corners to get the oil off, and you may have to use fingernails, sticks, or whatever to get the oil out of all the carving and little nooks and crannies. After doing this, set it out again to dry, and again, watch for the oil rising up. If you see any, simply wipe it off and let it sit until it does this no more. I like to let it sit for several days just to make durn sure that all is dry. You can then wax the stock if you wish, and that's it! Best of all, there's no steel wool used! Your corners are safe!

[Birddog6]

Chris: That definately is a great looking finish on that rifle. Thanks for the info & for all the details.

[Douglas Blair]

Fatdutchman, thank you for that very informative post on linseed oil preparation. That sound like a lot of work but am sure it is worth it.

[Fatdutchman]

It really isn't all that complicated, it's just more unpleasant than anything. Anyone who really wants to get as deeply as they can into "period correct" building methods should make themselves up some....just another thing about which you can say "I made it myself"!!!

[RBinAR]

;D I'm not that great of example to follow on finishing so I'm fessin up right now. Still some of the better finishes I've seen are tongue oil mixed with a bit of satin polyeurothene. I know I got noses turned up at that from all over but it works and drys hard without too much shine.

Depending on the wood however you have to adjust. If you ever do anything in rosewood solid or inlay it's best to just suck it up and get out the lacquer. Anything else and the risk of it sliding off like oil on a baby's but is possible with oily types.

[acal]

Laurel Mt. Forge Permalyn Sealer makes a great finish for wood. It is a durable, waterproof, easy to use finish. When dry, it leaves a satin finish, or you can reduce the finish to a matte sheen if you wish. Used properly, you can achieve an in the wood or on the wood finish.