doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Alkanet Root - Reddish Stock Look

Thanks for the Carnuba wax recommendation to get the max shine out of my oil finish.

I still have some alkanet root left over (dropped my XXX Jar of mineral spirits and alkanet root). Thus, for my next batch, I plan on mixing the alkanet root in alcohol (as someone here pointed out as a superior method).

So my next gun stock project will most likely have the following steps:

1) Grain filler/wet sand
2) Multiple layers of Behlen Blood Red
3) Alteranting layers of Alkanet Root in alcohol
4) Multiple layers of hand rubbed in Linseed Oil (most likely, although I may experiment here, too)
4A) Possible 50/50 mixture of tru oil and mineral spirits
5) Carnuba wax - polish polish polish

(Note: I may add some varnish to the linseed oil.)

Thanks for all the good recommendations so far. There is really good info here. For those who appreciate reddish stocks, this thread is very valuable.

Yogi,
You are, I hope joking? If so you have not mentioned using the Chrysler Corporation Electrolytic Chrome deposition.
In my experience this gives a high gloss, mirror like finish, but a little too flash for me.

Yogi,
Take it easy on the red stuff. Mix with oil for your primary applications or any soft spots in the wood will drink that red up like a sailor that just hit port. It will be very difficult to reverse. If after several tinted oil rubs you feel more red is needed you may apply a red wash over. The oil wil not prevent additional coloration but wiil moderate it. I think that's it for now.

I was swapping notes with acouple of London trained finishers last week and mentioned to one that in the past I have sometimes finsished stocks after filling the grain prior to putting on the oil finish and that sometimes i have not bothered with the initial grain filler but had better results without it.

His reaction was interesting - "Good - so you learned that". He went on to say that when rubbing off the oil with a cloth between coats, because you have to rub hard, a lot of normal grain fillers will be lifted out anyway.

You can fill the grain with oil finish if you are careful to build up very thin coats, alow plenty of drying time and cut back the finish with fine wire wool from time to time. Rotten stone palmed in when the finish is nearing an end result will help.

I find I get better colour from alkanet root steeped in raw linseed for several months - rather than using it in alcohol or turpentine, which dilutes it too much in my experience.

The finish I am using at the moment with best results is with turpentine rather than terebine as a drier and raw rather than boiled linseed oil. I have two other batches a waiting a trial and Salopian has another I made - I'll be interested in the results of that one.

A friend has a field full of bee hives - I have asked her for some pure bees' wax in blocks to try in a recipe for finishing oil.

All good fun.

Dig would you agree that each piece of wood is an individual and has to be treated as such when it comes to grain filling.

Most certainly.

Yes, I appreciate the warnings about too much red stuff and the benefit of oil and stain/dye mixed for initial applications. I effectively did that by accident on purpose with my last project and got---for me---a beautiful end result. I say accident on purpose because I redid the wood so many times and experimented along the way, thus, in hindsight, actually did the stain/oil mixture.

I have an old steven's favorite that my father had found buried in the foundation of our garage. It looked like a rusted rod when he dug it up. I redid the thing years ago (the first time when I was 14 right after he passed away). I will never ever sell the gun and it's collector value has long since been destroyed. But the grain of the wood is SO coarse and it has some gouges from being knocked around for 30 years. I opened my gun cabinet the other night and said----hmmmmm, I think when I redo the 870 stock I am going to redo this one, too. Filling the VERY coarse grain is a major ietm and I agree with what the others said that in the process of staining and sometimes sanding between layers the result is a filling of the open coarse grain. I intend to find out moe about this since this stock will verify the procedures... As some of you may have guessed I do plan on going with Behlen Blood Red and Alkanet in solvent on these stocks... with oil blended in(!) ...And, indeed, I will try NOT to go too red. But I guarantee they will NOT be dark brown

For UK residents.
Just done a stock with Blackfriars Spanish Mahogany wood stain it turned out very nice.

While looking for something else I ran across this and thought you might find it interesting. If it’s too small to read, email me and I’ll send you the file.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/mjpetrov/t3.jpg

I have had a number of enquiries about the strength of Alkanet oil.
I have had no problems with 4oz of root soaking in 1 pint of oil.
Longer you leave it the better it gets, shake it about once a week.