doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Stock Finish - Your Take

Hi all, kind of a lazy Sunday afternoon, so just thought I'd throw this out for some discussion.

Here's the question. What in your opinion are the pros and cons of these types of stock finishes:

Gloss (High Gloss) Poly Type

Satin

Oil

Any old comments will do, it's up to you.

You all have a great day!!

Greg

A glossy finish using Poly makes the wood look like plastic. Given that it is very durable though. Rain doesn't seem to have any damaging effects on it on the outside.When a glossy poly finish gets dinged it really shows up.

Satin is prefered by some. This can be a poly finish as well and very durable also. I personally don't like satin but that's just me.

Oil finish looks good and has a gentle sheen to it but it can be delicate when subjected to rain or crummy weather. There are some oil finishes out that have some poly in them with a drying agent that when built up look quite nice and have some durability to them. These finishes dry unlike linseed oil and have some life to them.

Just my two cents worth.

Regards, Gordon

I personally like a Tru-Oil finish that has been knocked down to a satin. I have seen some guns with the Poly finish that look good, but it is not my preference. Some oil finishes look good. I think it really depends on the period of which the gun is made. Somehow a modern Browning looks good in Poly, but not in oil or a satin finish. JMHO

If you are shooting 10,000+ a year through a comp gun poly or clear coat is needed or count on touching up quite often. Satin looks good but doesn't hold up in my experience.
bill

If you are shooting 10,000+ a year through a comp gun poly or clear coat is needed or count on touching up quite often. Satin looks good but doesn't hold up in my experience.
bill

You should see the book I'm compiling with all the emails back and forth to various friends about finishes. My take=there are as many takes as there are people. Some of the most "hyped" finishes I see no reason to ever use a second time. I also see the most knowlegable people I know keep trying new products, i.e. they haven't been 100% happy with one yet (and several of hte ones they have suggested I don't particularly care for).

This has been something of a progressio for me, so I'm interested in hearing from others any feedback on my experiences.

Oil finishes look nice, but my stocks always show visible water soaking in a real rain (BLO, Tung Oil). Even with urethane/oil finishes (True Oil, pro custom oil) the true "in the wood" finishes always absorb water and facial oil in my experience. For my purposes I would only use this type of finish on a fair-weather gun that wouldn't see a lot of hard use. (I live in the northeast, so I hunt in every weather from warm monsoon rain to zero degrees Kelvin).

Based on those experiences, I started building up the tung/urethane finishes a TINY bit more...it worked great, looks pretty good, but I find that with a lot of use the very thin buildup starts to look spotty much faster than I would have expected--it almost needs to be refinished after one busy hunting season or it starts to look uneven, patchy, etc. (and the dull patches still absorb water and oil like a sponge). This may be the best compromise, as it's still fairly easy to replenish the finish with this level of buildup.

After that, I figured I would try a more built-up finish but I didn't want a real gloss. I tried using 2 of the matte finishes that have a flattener in it, and built it up more than I would otherwise have. I think this could look ok, but my experience was that with the very dark-colored eastern black walnut I used in one case, any scratches in the finish from rubbing out showed up very visibly--forcing me to polish it right back up to a pretty high gloss in order to get the clarity I think the dark wood needs...it looks anything but matte, it's "shinier than the brass bedposts in a $2 whorehouse". The firswt finish (waterlox satin) dried so fast that it didn't self-level at all--I found it very difficult to work with and I ended up building it up thicker than I had intended in order to get an even finish after rubbing out. The other one I tried one of the matte finishes that has been talked about a lot recently (benmatte) and found that it's actully anything but matte--in fact it's pretty darn glossy even when hand-rubbed in--it's great to work with, but I think it's badly named and so far it doesn't really do what I had hoped.
I'll try a different matte finish (suggestions??) again on a lighter colored piece of english walnut before I give up on it, as others have told me this lighter wood won't show the fine haze of scratches from rubbing out nearly as much, but at this point I am still very much searching for the holy grail.

Please let me know when you find it.

On a lark (and from a suggestion from Chuck in California) I tried Min-wax wipe on poly in satin. I used it on a $400 Tobin 12 gauge, that I didn't really care about, with rather plain wood.
Following the directions, I built up a coat at a time for most of a month, knocking it down with steel wool between coats. The last coats were knocked down with various grades of wet-or-dri paper, out to perhaps 1200 grit. I rubbed it with a Birchwood Casey stock sheen of some sort at the end, but, didn't like the look, so I rubbed again with 3M "Finese-it" auto body polish, to which I added a bit of rotten stone from a shaker.
From a distance of 5 feet or so, it mimics a rubbed oil finish. It is water-proof as a wood finish comes, and hard as a rock. It much improved the figure of the rather plain wood. To say I was pleased with it is an understatement.
On a gun that gets used, polyureathane is almost mandatory. On a gun that gets talked about being used, use whatever traditional oil finish you want. They aren't weather-proof.
Best,
Ted

Hi all, great posts!! Say Ted, I just love that last sentence of yours, just great!

Anyone else?

All the best!

Greg

I have been using Watco Danish Oil Finish for some time. It has a soft finish, drys in a reasonable period of time and easy to apply..
THis is a Parker that was BAD, no figure apparent at all when I received it.

I second the Min-Wax wipe on Poly. It comes the closest looking like an oil finish, but with the resilience of the plastic cover.
That being said, I finished more wood with Tru-oil than anything, being easy to use and looking OK.