I do find this grouped of postings extremely interesting for a number of reasons so I kept my comments to when it slowed down. I have framed my interest as a number of questions.
Why the fascination with Slakum because at the time of its sort of its inception Our queen Victoria was on the throne so lets say before nineteen hundred though she did not slip off her mortal coil until nineteen hundred and 1. So we are talking about a finish made up of ingredients available a hundred years ago so considering the type of finishes we have today it is rather low on the performance list. UNLESS you want to provide a vintage gun with a true vintage finish. My question is if you spent a lot of money and a considerable amount of time restoring a vintage car would you re spray it with cellulose or two pack paint?
Venice turpentine or the not so high class name boiled Larch Sap at the time of its use in the eighteen hundreds it worked well but not brilliantly and today good for Horses hoofs and Artists to give body to oil paint, though what seems to be left out of information regarding a finish using Venice Turpentine is that the stock needs to have a little Linseed Oil to be applied a couple of times a year to keep the finish up to a serviceable level and of course look good. Though this is not a bad thing because Slakum and oil finishes are in the wood and not on the top.
The REAL magic for a formula associated with gun stock finishing oil is 1 : ! : I from all the way back in time to the days of sailing ships and the mean penny pinching British Admiralty, because they had this large problem of ships Spars rotting and over time they came up with a viable cure to slow the rot down, Spar is the clue for this rot cure are you with me? SPAR VARNISH!!!! At the time made up from one part Copal one part Tung Oil one part Turpentine, though all far too expensive for the money saving Admiralty after a time things where adjusted to Copal Linseed Oil cheap home produced rather than oil from at the time China and still keeping Turpentine.
This varnish was so good at wood protection that it did not take long for it to be used for wood protection and of course keeping the Brit weather out of gun stocks amongst all the other things. Now the 1 : !: 1 ratio came up again and still used today for modern gun stock finishing oil, one part spar varnish one part turpentine substitute (mineral spirits) one part linseed oil with as many tweaks to the mix formula as grains of sand in a bucket from different makers.
I will just give one example though there are hundreds. If you obtain the Health and Safety certificate (that is what they are called here), this is it in a nut shell 56% Mineral Spirits. 33% Modified Oil. 11% Linseed Oil from a large selling brand.
I wont paint the whole picture but I am sure that it is not a huge mental leap to figure out that modified oil is, other than one with a form of resin incorporated. It is good to see that the subject of stock finishing oils is still a hot topic still and the way it has been talked about since the true protection of gunstocks was needed and my personal thought on this is from the time when expensive pieces of Walnut started to be fitted to guns.
So please experiment but please look forward and not back in time and experiment with modern products though please keep the tried and tested oils to give that satin look, but use the waxes as a final dressing on the finish because that is where they work the best if you put them in they reduce the overall effectiveness
