doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com stock refinishing

Salopian,
Thanks for the nod and I will definitely try Liberon. They have a host of products; can you be very specific about which I should buy? I'm always looking to try new finishes, especially when they're recommended by people with firsthand experience on gunstocks.

Chuck,

Ya got me......I've never actually used straight-up polyurethane on a gunstock. I've only ever used the Waterlox "original sealer" and "original satin oil", what they call their #1 and #2 selling products. With the polyurethane remark I was really refering to Tru-Oil.

My first projects were rifle stocks in the 70's and 80's and I did many of them with Tru-Oil. Varmint rifles get handled very little and most of those are still beautiful today. Tru-Oil is a good finish and I still heartily recommend it to novices and/or people who want to do a passable refinish on a gun or two but aren't looking to make a hobby of it.

I was perfectly happy with Tru-oil until I got into shotguns in the late 80's. Target guns get handled a tremendous amount and game guns are gonna get scratched. I found Tru-Oil was cheap, available, easy to use and did a darned fine job of sealing and protecting. Also, I was able to duplicate the Weatherby-type, high gloss, mirror finishes that were a fad in the 70's. But when I got interested in shotguns, the gun writers convinced me what I really wanted was a "satin, low-luster, hand-rubbed oil finish." Tru-Oil started to let me down....no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get satisfactory results by cutting the gloss off. I also found it left something to be desired when there's a need to retouch.

I read an article by Jim Carmichael in which he canvassed a number of pro stockmakers for what finishes and techniques they used. That's where I first heard of "Danish oil", a tung oil/urethane blend sold by Deft and Watco. I tried it and was instantly hooked for the next several guns. Still not ecstatic over the luster but thrilled with the "retouchability" of wear spots and removing scratches without a complete refinish. Virtually all of our modern finishes are blends of urethanes and either tung oil (Waterlox, Watco Danish, Permalyn)or linseed oil (Tru-Oil, Minwax Antique, ProCustom). I've developed a bias towards tung oil blends. Tru-Oil is a linseed blend and I think it tends toward the urethane end of the spectrum.

About this time I learned of Permalyn with seems to be nearly identical to the Danish oils but "formulated for gunstocks" and I did a couple with it. This was the comp gun with honey-colored Caifornia English. Remember the 30 page thread on alkanet stain and a couple of folks commented on stains passing right through a cured Tru-Oil finish? Well, my skin oil passed right through the Permalyn finish and darkened the wood. I stripped, bleached and redid and it happened again. Finally redid with Tru-oil (unlike the stains, my skin oil didn't penetrate) and told myself I was happy with a glossy comp gun.

After doing a couple of game guns with Waterlox I used it on a second comp gun in CA English and there's no hint of discoloration after about 45,000 rounds.

FWIW, these stocks were done with 1) Waterlox Original Satin Oil Finish and 2) with the Original Sealer. I like both but I prefer the slightly lower luster of the first. The important thing to me is that those gloss levels are inherent in the finish....thats the way they dry......no rubbing or other doctoring required.

I guess few use Dembart Stock and Checkering oil but i have used it several times and i am very pleased with the low sheen finish it produces! Bobby

Mike beautiful guns and work! In looking at both styles ,capped and round knob pistol grips,i like both styles but the capped grip looks cleaner or? to me! Bobby

Nice job Mike beautiful gun, but it's kind of lacking in Luster in comparison to an English oil finish.

Mike,
Very, very nice work. I really like the satin sheen.

Does the Waterlox Original Satin Oil Finish have urethanes at all? Or is that only in the other Waterlox Oil-Modified Urethane?

Bobby,

I gotta confess, I've seen the Dembart oil in Brownells catalog, but never tried it. And I agree about the grips....I like 'em all, but if I had 6 shotguns, one would be a round knob, one would have a straight grip and the other 4 would look like the first gun!

Joe,
I don't know what an English oil finish is or I might like it too. We all have different tastes and mine is no more "right" than anyone elses. My main point is...IF you like something less than high gloss, and IF you're gonna do it yourself, and IF you're a little frustrated with trying to rub the shine off, and IF one of these lusters appeal to you, then I can vouch for how easy it is to get these results with this product. At any given time I've got a dozen or so guns I've stocked myself and 2-3 projects in the works and no 2 are ever finished exactly the same way. I WISH I had a standard process to guarantee success, but I'm still working on it. I'm always studying the finishes on custom guns and I've seen dozens I really like, but I don't know how the stocker accomplished it.

I'm not trying to sell anything here and I'd sure love to hear how others finish their stocks, especially with pics.

Chuck,

"Does the Waterlox Original Satin Oil Finish have urethanes at all? Or is that only in the other Waterlox Oil-Modified Urethane?"

Unless you're using pure, boiled linseed oil (I don't recommend it) or 100% tung oil (I've never tried it and I'm not about to)or something that says explicitly "polyurethane" on the can, then you're using a blend of drying oil and urethanes or phenolic rsins. So ,yes, the Waterlox original satin oil is a blend of resins and tung oil, just like many other products, but it's THEIR proprietary blend that makes it unique. Like Pepsi and Coke...the same, but different.

Finish jargon (resins, urethanes, drying oils, varnishes,evaporation, oxidation, polymerization, shellacs, lacquers, epoxies, etc) means one thing to a finish chemist and something else to the consumer; can be pretty confusing.Try making sense of this....

https://www.waterlox.com/Portals/Documents/0a70f60c-5ba1-43d2-a33e-257a149476cf.pdf

I think for our purpose we should treat the Original Satin Oil as another gunstock finish and the Oil-Modified Urethane as something to shy away from.

regards, Mike

Here's an image posted in the alkanet topic but it gives some impression of sheen from the previously posted oil formula. This finish has not received its final polish as I doubt it will be dry enough for another month, a drawback of linseed.
[img]http://s127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/HansliCharpent/?action=view&current=DSCF0168.jpg[/img]

Mike,is the grip cap you used a late Savage factory style that came on Sterlingworths or a custom made one? Bobby

Bobby,
I made it out of ebony. Rough cut it with a coping saw, epoxied it on and shaped it in place. I've made a bunch of grip caps and a curved, checkered, removable butt plate so far. My next Fox will have a grip cap and I'm going to do my first forend wedge.

Hansli,
I didn't read the alknet story, but that is a heck of a beautiful stock. I have a piece of straight grained english that I'm whittling into a Zischang Schuetzen Borchardt that might benefit well from whatever you did to that one. Can you provide some info about how you did it?

Thanks very much for the picture.

Brent