doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gunstock stains/dyes question

I can recommend the Laurel Mountain Forge products. Their Walnut has a nice reddish tone to it. They are alcohol-based stains.

Thanks. Their Barrel brown/degreaser is great for rust bluing, BTW. Boiling turns the brown to blue/black, usually only needs 4 coats.

I just want to say that Red Oil made with Alkanet used over here to add depth and colour to gun stocks there is a little more to the story than just Alkanet/Oil.
Alkanet colour is sensitive to Acid or Alkali condition of the wood in fact it was used as an indicator before the Litmus test became the usual standard practice, so the same mix applied to two walnut stocks can give two differing colour shades depending on what the wood was treated with before the oil is applied. Also when you make the oil the colour is not identical from batch to batch and some finishers added dragon�s blood to the mix to obtain that special signature colour they wanted.
So there is a little more to it than mixing alkanet root with oil or any thing else for that matter and applying it to the wood in fact you must put some experimentation in to perfect the process for your self.

I don't know what is meant by "surgical alcohol." If you mean "rubbing alcohol" I would urge caution since rubbing alcohol is often isopropyl alcohol mixed with an oil so it doesn't dry the skin. Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is very expensive since it's drinking alcohol and taxed heavily and available only in liquor stores. Denatured alcohol is ethanol mixed with stuff that makes you very sick when you drink it.

I use methanol on stocks. Methanol is wood alcohol. Cheap because it cannot be drunk as it is toxic if you do. So don't.

There are two general classes of stains - pigment and dye stains. Pigment stains have colored paint pigment in them and can dull the grain. A dye stain does not and will not dull the grain. Water or organic solvent dye stains can be used.

Surgical alcohol is pure alcohol with no additives, distilled from fermented sugars. It is not isopropyl and not methylated or wood alcohol nor is it rubbing alcohol. Yes it can be drunk, although I shudder to think of the taste and effect of 95 per cent pure alcohol!

Failing finding pure alcohol sometime ago I have mashed alkanet in vodka, and it worked.

Methylated alcohol will leave that grey or brown stain on wood and leather.

Everclear PGA is available in 151 & 190 proof in most states & should work just fine as a substitute for surgical alcohol

It was the basic ingredient in the punch served at most parties when I was in college. Worked well for that also.

Thanks, SL. Is there any way to get that grey brown out of the old wood before finishing ? What would wood bleach do to it ?

I am attempting to make an original forend match a fairly new restocked butt.

SRH

The term "surgical alcohol" does not have a chemical meaning. I looked it up and it generally refers to rubbing alcohol which is a mixture of (generally) isopropyl alcohol and some oil. It does not mean ethanol.

Denatured alcohol is ethanol (drinking alcohol) that has stuff added to it to make it undrinkable.

They used to add methanol (wood alcohol) as the denaturing agent and that product was often called "methylated alcohol" or "methylated spirits"

Drinking methanol can blind you or kill you so they don't use it anymore to denature alcohol. Instead they some other agents that just make you sick. I don't know what the various denaturing agents in current use are but it is likely that they, and not the alcohol, are causing the graying you see. I have used methanol extensively for decades and have never had it gray anything.

Is your graying so dark that it makes staining difficult?

I bought an A5 at Cabelas that apparently was stored somewhere water rose to about half the butt stock. The gun was badly spotted with rust and apparently believed to be a salt gun because it was quite cheap. When I saw the round knob and the manufacturing date I knew it wasn't a salt gun and I believed the rust to be not of a serious nature. It has cleaned up beautifully to the nicest A5 I've ever owned as it was apparently used very little. However there is a water stain on the stock that will not sand out. I would like to take it back to it's original light chestnut color.

How do I handle the water stain with out going to a overall dark stain to cover it.

Sorry for this answer,
But have you thought of different colored
permanent magic markers
Sometimes they are perfect, sometimes not
Mike