doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com To stain or not to stain...

I have never hired anyone to stock a gun for me, but have always done it myself. Wood scraps off the blank you're using are invaluable in determining whether or not any stain is needed. Walnut will often darken up nicely, as in the photo above by SKB. I don't usually want it much darker than that. But, sometimes you need to match the forend, or vice-versa, when restocking and retaining either of the aforementioned. I am doing that right now to a Sterlingworth ejector gun. It required four coats of dark walnut, with a little even added to the old forend wood, to get the two pieces of wood to look like they came from the same tree. But, they do now.

I'd never leave maple as is. Many do, but I do not care for blond wood on a gun. Certain stains really make curly maple pop.

SRH

Exactly Keith.
If you use a clear Urethane that sits on top of the wood, you get a loght color that does little to help the figure in the wood. There is no finish that does less for color and figure than Urethanes. But it sure is tough. TruOil, being a clear heavier finish will also give you a lighter color, but help the figure more.

A deep penetrating ground coat will do the best for deepening color and bringing out the figure. I use Clear Danish oil a lot as a ground coat. And it really does darken the wood a LOT. Permalyn sealer is nice. But does not darken as much.

Some finishes have some color to them and this gives the wood some color. I use a lot of Amber Shellac and Timberluxe. Shellac is a correct old style finish for American guns that gives the wood a redish orange hue. Timberluxe gives a reddish tint and really pulls the light into the wood and makes the figure pop.

Different sorts of jobs call for different thpes of finishes.

When trying to match a forend or a butt, checking the blank with alcohol is always a good indication at the start of what i am dealing with.
If i am restocking the butt and leaving the forend, i usually still refinish and point ip the forend checkering as to bring everything together. Unless the forend finish is in great shape the start with.

In my opinion I have never been satisfied with any stain on walnut ( other than alkanet ) with one exception.

Tried all sorts of commercial stains but I find on plain wood it just gives the appearance of being a bit "flat".


Very blonde wood benefits usually from alkanet oil pre treatment, and most woods generally benefit from alkanet, some woods like that crotch piece pictured could be obscured by an alkanet pre treatment and you lose some definition in the figure.

The only "stain" other than the afore mentioned alkanet root oil, I have used is basically a strong warm coffee mixture applied several times to the stock allowed to dry and rubbed back with fine paper. I used this technique on a Winchester 101 which had a flame of heart wood running through it with the rest being white wood with a clear definition between the two areas, it just darkened up the light wood a touch and helped bring out the fine ripples which were previously invisible, it was never going to be an amazing bit of wood but it bought out the best of what was there.