doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Refinishing Beech

And then you may learn that those all-in-one finishes with stain in them are one of the worst things ever concocted. If you wish to go down that road, best you experiment on scrap wood. You can only sand mistakes off your stock so many time before you screw it up.

Do you include �Red oil� in your indictment?

When I used this "traditional" stain treatment on a tiger-striped maple long rifle stock the green didn't become evident until about three years after the final finish. I'll never use it again.

SRH

Certainly. And most definitely with a wood like beech that is notorious for uneven stain absorption. I find it much more controllable to use either a home-brewed alcohol based alkanet stain or Behlen's SolarLuxe prior to applying my final finish. But if your unconventional furniture and cabinet finishing techniques give you the look you want on a gunstock, go for it.

Oh, I'm not recommending Japanese Shou Sugi Ban to gussy up this beech stock either, although that technique made some nice tool handles when I finished them. Too much potential for a bad result for a first try on a rifle.

Did it have chromium in it? I think it may have. There were/are a number of concoctions that do seem to feature that green and I think it might be chromium, but I can't recall for sure.

A good aquafortis stain will never turn green. I built this rifle with aquifortis close to 20 yrs old and still dark brown on maple. And of course, most antique maple muzzleloaders haven't turned green. In fact, I have never seen one that has. So, perhaps not all "traditional" finishes are traditional.

I dissolved iron filings in the acid. Was there chromium in the iron? I don't know. Best I remember it was filings from cold rolled steel. I went by the original formula the best I knew how. Others told me they have had the same results, with the green tint coming later.


There are a lot better "traditional type" stains out there to use for m/ls.............like Homer Dangler's.

SRH

Well, I don't know what happened with yours. Probably the acid you used. But in any event, mine has not had that problem. I don't think it will, so it can be done.

Back in the late 1960s, there was a muzzle-loading group in the area where I live. One gentleman had personally made more than 50 rifles. He gave me some help & advise on mine though I did the work myself. Nitric acid was often used on the stock finish. Before I did mine he warned me occasionally one would turn Green, & he knew of no way to predict or prevent it. I went on with the acid. Brushed on the acid, then dried it with a propane torch After the acid treatment I coated the stock with Potassium Permanganate until it turned Black. This was rubbed then with steel wool dipped in linseed oil until the desired tone was reached. It turned out really good & has never gone Green. This was on Curly Maple.

Another method I discovered later is to coat the maple with a strong Tea solution then set the part in a sealed container, Cardboard Box will work, along with a dish of Stronger Ammonia. The Ammonia reacts with the tannic acid in the tea & turns it a most beautiful color. I have not done a stock this way but have done some pistol grips & several other items.

This process is said to have originated with Oak "Mission Furniture" except the oak had its own tannic acid & did not need the tea treatment.

I have no idea how chromium would reaction in the wood finishing mixture or on that particular blank, but I would be confident there is some chromium in 'CRS'. I believe it is recycled and I wouldn't count on it being consistent batch to batch other than it's likely a mild steel.

I don't really trust my memory of what was supposed to cause green stocks, but it was a very common problem and some actually liked the effect back in the 80s.

I have a pair of rifles that I treated with the same bottle of nitric acid solution yet turned out very different. One is the rifle with the antelope above. I don't have a photo of the other handy, but it is very red. They are both some sort of curly maple but certainly from different sources and perhaps the wood makes a difference.

Anyway, I've never had one turn green.