doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bone black

An Acquaintance mentioned that he uses this in his stock finishing, and I recently saw another reference to it. What is this stuff, and what does it do? I did a quick google search which turned up some general info, but nothing very specific. Application techniques, photographs, circles, arrows, pluses, minuses, rants (on topic) and tangents welcome...I liked what I saw in the one pic I have.

Hi David,...It's a pigment made from charred bone is black as can be, you can buy it in powder form, I would imagine they are using it as a filler in the finish

CJ

David, bone black is often used to highlight certain areas of a stock--places where a dark area are wanted. I've used it on carved flintlock rifle stocks, dusting it into wet finish around carving, etc. If gives those areas a very pleasing contrast. I can't think of any practical use for it on doubles unless you're restoring a piece and want the wood to have an aged appearance. Maybe SDH will chime in here--he certainly has the experience. I'm just a duffer. A good substitute for bone black is ground up artist's charcoal. Has basically the same effect.

There's info on and pics of the use of bone black here:


http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9411043/m/991109316?r=710103416#710103416

I am the acquaintance Dave mentioned. I use bone blackening to bring out grain flow I can see in open pored, bland colored wood. I mix the blackening in a pore filler and then work it into the stock just as you would use a normal pore filler. It looks like heck when first added as the whole stock looks black when first applied. Once applied, you knock it back like you normally would with any pore filler. IMO it is a good way to make an open pored, bland colored stock look better. Below is a rifle stock I finished using the method. Prior to the blackening there was no grain contrast in the finish.

So where do you guys get this? I searched on brownells website, the only thing I could find was bone charcoal:
bone charcoal

nevermind...found it at midway usa for anyone interested.