doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com When is wood too gaudy for a stock?

Mike,
Darkness of Curl's stock pic aside, you make a good point. You don't see big bold mineral lines in most of the old Fox stocks. I wonder if it was a taste thing of that era or the wood wasn't sourced from CA or other places with such figure? The darkness of most of the wood of that era(not necessarily Curl's) I attribute to stain, oil, dirt and darkened finish on many older guns we see (mine has a crystal clear finish with no color or stains.) We often see some restorations here that bear this out when finishes are removed and oil leached out. But even after all that, my experience has been that not all of the surface darkening is completely cleared.

I wonder if the more subtle mineral figure is a carryover from the Best guns of London of that era? It seems to me that London guns didn't start using the really heavily mineral line wood until lately?

Possibly, Researcher has some info on the wood sourcing.