Folks often ask me, “How do you get those stock so red? They look like the old ones”
This is a short course on how-to. Forgive me for being brief, I am trying share some info yet make a living and I quit doing How-to’s years ago cause I never could get in all of the detail.
The stock is filled with Daly’s ProFin and rottenstone, probably has 8-10 coats, wet sanded with water as lube, 320-400-600. Wet sanding with water leaves that washed out look. Very careful to sand down to the wood without leaving any finish on the surface. Stain will not penetrate with finish on the surface, that is why I don’t wet sand with stock finish. (Method adapted from Mark Silver & Monte Mandarino in Prof. Stockmaking by Wesbrook)
When pores are filled, as nearly completely as you determine, and uniformly wet sanded to remove surface finish it is cleaned with a wipe of mineral spirits. Stain bottle shown in photo (Behlen American Walnut #B503-6A235) with proprietary solvent, other solvents won’t work. Swabbed on with shoe dauber with cottom rag in other hand for blending, must blend as you go. Second coat and subsequent touch-up is blended with rag until all is uniform. Forend was darker than butt, so mixed lighter tone and stained to match.
Stained stock must be allowed to sit and fully evaporate, a few hours, before applying finish. It will go through another transformation with the top-coats of final finish,
I’ll ad some more info and pix of stock with top-coats after a bit, maybe tomorrow.
Questions?
