Initial Walnut Stock Sealing

I don't want to derail this thread too badly, but does anyone use a "sanding sealer" as a first coat? I've used seriously thinned shellac as a sanding sealer for furniture and it came out nice. I'm thinking of trying the same thing the next time I need to do a stock.
 
It's true that gunstock "blanks" sometimes do sit for quite some time, but if you have ever bought many gunstock blanks from a reputable seller, you will quickly see that the butt-stock end grain has been completely sealed as is the fore-end tip of the blank.
The duration of drying these blanks, if done correctly, takes several years for the moisture content in the wood to reach 8%. The wood end grain contains the wood capillaries which are now hollow, and they are what carries sap up and into the leaves. A raw gunstock still thinks it's a tree and will try and draw any and all moisture into those capillaries if left open, so that's why the ends are sealed during the stock blank curing & drying process.

It's good to read that you plan to "pillar bed" your gunstock. I do that with every wood stock I inlet, and here's why. Some folks just relieve some wood in the action and then dump some bedding compound into the stock and then clamp the barreled action into the stock until the bedding sets. Here's why I don't care for that method. The capillaries in the wood underneath the bedding can still collapse and cause the bedding to go sour when the action screws are torqued properly. The pillars, between the receiver and the bottom metal arrest the tightening of the action screws and keep the bedding solid, without any distortion of the bedding, so accuracy remains over time.

I much prefer "Permalyn" gunstock finish because it penetrates deeply into the stocks surface. For my work I want the stock to have a smooth, flat, pore filled surface so that the tops of the checkered diamonds are tough and able to take handling of the working rifle. Once the checkering has been cut to full depth, there are three coats of hardening finish applied to the checkering, one coat a couple of days after I know that the finish has completely hardened up those diamonds:

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Doyle said:
Raw linseed oil would be the last thing I would ever want on a gun stock. It would stay gummy for years.
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Agree !!!
Much better products have been invented since the old raw linseed oil finishing method of
Apply: one coat a day for a week, one coat a week for a month , one coat a month for a year and one coat a year for the rest of your life.

The problem is there are no driers what so ever in raw oil.....in Louisiana on a hot humid day you can feel the tackyness...they never really dry down deep, just a thin surface oxidation.

Any stock finish sold by Brownell's will be so much better. At least use True-Oil , it is linseed oil based modified with driers so it will dry completely and form a hard surface film. I have used it for decades on stocks ...But

Now I have discovered a finish I like even better than True-Oil.
It's Min-Wax Tung Oil Finish . It has a Tung oil base and is modified with driers so it will harden , easy to build up a nice deep finish and I think it looks better than a Tru-Oil finish. I refinished an antique oak dining room table and 8 chairs , the finish looks great and holds up to wear...so I thought hey, this stuff would make a good stock finish, done several and I like the stuff.

Don't listen to the you have to use pure linseed oil or pure Tung oil bunch ...modified oils give a better finish , it drys faster and builds up a hard surface film.

Gary
 
YES; Good question and process is current

I don't want to derail this thread too badly, but does anyone use a "sanding sealer" as a first coat?
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You are doing fine and your reply, takes me back a few years. Yes, it is still being used. It fills and seals. Whenever I choose to fill, which isn't often, I use commercial fillers. ….. :p

Be Safe !!!
 
Linseed oil will dry quicker and take fewer coats, but it will yellow with time. I prefer tung oil if Im doing something nice. It cures slower and takes more coats but I find it more pleasing to the eye and hand. Which ever you go with, apply THIN coats and rub rub rub.
 
I'm currently working on a English Walnut stock I had inletted by Ben Piper at Soroka Rifles USA, and he fixed me up with a recipe that works great for me.
It's a mix of Turpentine, Wipe On Poly, and Teak oil, sorry I can't give you any mixing info because he asked me not to.
But this is working wonders for me...
 
Hooligan, what you are describing is what woodworkers call a "witches brew". Each woodworker kind of comes up with his own mixture that he likes to work with.
 
Doyle,

Bob Flexner explained the term "tung oil finish" in the industry just means the finish the product produces resembles an actual tung oil finish in appearance, but doesn't mean there is any actual tung oil in it.

It's not driers so much as the heat polymerizing that make Tru-Oil effective where BLO is not. Same with that whole class of finishes. I don't know much about the wiping oils other than that Flexner rated them at the top of the protection level for oil finishes.

A friend of mine who is a cabinet maker put me on to the Danish oils. He said he liked the combination of hardness and appearance. They don't have UV blockers, but he said the blockers compromise hardness to a degree, so he didn't like them for tables. Besides, people don't leave their dining tables outdoors. We don't keep our rifles outside for extended periods, either, so it's hard to accumulate a lot of UV yellowing and embrittling.

My friend, applies Danish oil finishes by rubbing them in with progressively finer wet/dry sandpaper, going from 320 to 400 to 600 grit. It seems to fill in the grains well. It does have to be wiped
 
Whenever I choose to fill, which isn't often, I use commercial fillers.
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I don't use sanding sealers very often either, but when restoring Winchester stocks, I use shellac as a sanding filler. It's what the workers at Winchester used before WW2. It's quick and gives acceptable result. I don't particularly like to use it because it gives a yellowish cast to the wood (yes, just like pre-war Winchesters).
 
At the most protective end are the polymerized oils and wiping varnishes. These are oils like linseed oil and tung oil that have been heated close to 500°F in a non-oxidizing atmosphere for a temperature-dependent amount of time which causes the oil molecules to partially cross-link (cross-linking is what curing is) to form long molecular chains that are very good at resisting water. Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil is an example. The downside is a glossy finish, though you can add flattening agents to wiping varnish.
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Although this didn't start out as a "what type of finish should I use" thread, I'll add that the only stock refinish I've done is of the Boyd's stock on my Garand, and I used "tung oil finish", as described above.
It was easy to apply, there's no arcane timing or technique involved, and it looks very nice.
Wiping it down with 0000 steel wool cuts the shine, if you want a satin appearance.

I got a dent in the stock after finishing, used the wet cloth and iron technique to raise it, then just lightly sanded and applied another coat of finish over it, and it looks like new.
 
Unclenick said:
Doyle,

Bob Flexner explained the term "tung oil finish" in the industry just means the finish the product produces resembles an actual tung oil finish in appearance, but doesn't mean there is any actual tung oil in it.

It's not driers so much as the heat polymerizing that make Tru-Oil effective where BLO is not. Same with that whole class of finishes. I don't know much about the wiping oils other than that Flexner rated them at the top of the protection level for oil finishes.

A friend of mine who is a cabinet maker put me on to the Danish oils. He said he liked the combination of hardness and appearance. They don't have UV blockers, but he said the blockers compromise hardness to a degree, so he didn't like them for tables. Besides, people don't leave their dining tables outdoors. We don't keep our rifles outside for extended periods, either, so it's hard to accumulate a lot of UV yellowing and embrittling.

My friend, applies Danish oil finishes by rubbing them in with progressively finer wet/dry sandpaper, going from 320 to 400 to 600 grit. It seems to fill in the grains well. It does have to be wiped
Click to expand...

I had heard about this same processes of using wet/dry sand paper years ago. Tried it and it worked very nicely. Took a lot more coats than simply rubbing on the oil but was worth the time!

Probably should say that using the fine wet/dry paper's you put it on rubbing in circles. What happens is the sanding dust is mixed in with the oil and going in circles forces the wet dust into pores. Apply till pores are filled!
 
RickB,

Pure tung oil works, but it seems to be slow to polymerize. For best results, if they don't have you add a drier, they recommend letting each coat dry several days, and then you need to sand it before the next coat. Just more work than the modern stuff. But it dios penetrate deeper.
 
Yeah, and that's why I used the "wiping varnish" tung oil finish, rather than pure tung oil.

I think I applied one coat per day for four or five days, then rubbed it down with 0000.

Pure tung oil apparently penetrates deeper, and some advocate thinning the "tung oil finish" for the first coat, so it penetrates more deeply.

Nobody knows wood as good as Homer Formby, says the can. :)
 
This concoction has been steller so far, my grain pores were filled faster, and the hand rubbing is very nice and it dries fairly quick, I've leave it for a few days and come back to it.
 
I had really good results with pure Teak wood oil on an old Winchester stock. I chose it because I read that it has good UV resistance. Happy so far.
 
I'd do a coat of LinSpeed or TruOil followed by a good dress down with steel wool. Then I'd do many additional layers. Yeah I'm ole school.
 
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