I want to thank everybody for the help and education!
Learned a lot. Photo as promised.
You can see the black streak down the center that I feathered up to. The repair was to the left where it is slightly lighter. I thought about going a bit darker but as you can see it matches the area just below the repair, which I didn't disturb. I'm very happy with it. There are 4 coats on the area that was damaged and one coat over the whole stock for blend. There are also two nicks it the butt that can be seen. They were not messed with, as that 1/4" will be removed for a leather pad.
Ithaca1
