I've started to refinish the William Evans I mentioned. After stripping, I applied 3 coats of red oil (BLO and alkanet). I am now on my 5th coat of my slacum/tung oil combination. My base slacum consists of 16 ounces (473 ml) BLO, 25 ml turpentine, 10 grams dry carnuba wax and 10 ml of concentrated venice terpentine. For some reason, my first batch of this did not work out properly as it looked like the carnuba precipitated out and settled to the bottom of the container. The next batch, I heated longer and this one has been pretty stable for more than 6 weeks now.
My final finish product is 75% slacum mixed with 25% Minwax tung oil. I only make down about 20 ml at a time. This combination seemed to give me the sheen I was looking for, a reasonable drying time and a finish hardness that should provide adequate protection and ease of repair or refinish if needed.
Each morning, I add and rub in a very small amount of this final finish and let it sit for 30-45 minutes. Then I take a 1 square of cloth (old T shirt cut into pieces) and add a very small amount of the slacum mix to act as a lubricant and rub the stock and forend down. Then it hangs for the next 24 hours.
So far, so good. The red oil really brought the dark grain out. I'll let you know how it goes.
Any advice??
Dennis P - thanks for the offer. I will try to call you this week.
