doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker French Polish question.

Sure, I'm not knocking True Oil, I just consider that the concept of "Restoration" to be that of matching original appearance/techniques/materials as closely as possible.

Ken, not to be smart but if you want to replicate the original finish that was on the lower graded guns, easy, brush on shellac and that is it.

Daryl, I am guessing all the oil that is found in stocks is linseed oil, especially if it is hard. There was a period back then when people had read articles on preserving the wood and bringing it back to what it was when it left the factory. The trouble is, they never read the whole process and never took the receiver from the stock.
Factory for an oil finish was to submerge the stock in linseed oil and let it sit for a day and rub it out. Again and again and then to use some of the recipes they had for a final finish. This process might take close to a month.

I still can't comprehend using that much oil on the barrels and receiver to seep into the wood with the gun standing.

Here is an FW S L.C. Smith post 1946 Field Grade stock that I finished for a gentleman that wanted the whole gun taken apart and the barrels, receiver, screws, trigger guard and was sent to Classic Guns for re-rusting, re-case hardened, along with Nitre bluing of the trigger guard.
In my opinion Classic Guns does the best in reproducing the colors of an L.C. Smith.

I refinished this stock using 16 coats of True Oil. Sorry about the dark photo, but I decided to take the pictures at the last moment.

Beautifully done, David. Would you be willing to share your step by step process applying the True Oil?

Thanks Joe, but it was really simple. The receiver was off and the only thing I did was lightly sand the wood. I didn't remove all of the old shellac, just dulled it and applied the True Oil with a small piece of cotton linen a drop or two at a time. Once you get a few coats on the farther the True Oil seems to go. I try to apply this in a circular motion also, but in some places it is hard to do. You will see if you miss a spot as it will be dull, just go over it later and it will blend in.

In your dry area, you should be able to apply 2 or more coats a day, but if it starts to stick, stop and wait for it to completely dry.

Hi all

Now I do not want to be controversial over what are good or bad gun stock finishes but the old adage of if you could ask a hundred gun stockers here in Brit land what was in the finish they use you would get a hundred different answers, but I am sure that in a lot of the answers they would be extremely economical with the truth anyway.
Now over the years I have collected a lot of so called hush hush and highly secret recipes for gun stock finishes including the infamous secretive �Slakum� to the trade mix it by the gallon and use a big brush to apply it.
And in a nut shell they all have roughly the same type of make up but using a large variety of ingredients to do the same thing.
So to make sense of it all I started to list the ingredients by what their part in the formula was and it started to make sense to why there are so many versions of finishes.
Though if you look back in to the past fine wood finishing was the territory of Musical Instrument makers and what substances they had to choose from was extremely limited by today�s standards.
To keep things practical it is a lot easier to have a liquid to apply rather than a solid lump so we need a carrier that will either hold in suspension or dissolve what we want to apply to the wood. And what we would want to apply is either a simple basic wax or drying oil to various forms of resin though if we go down the resin route drying time starts to become an issue with some resins though not in every case, but some unknown and unsung hero found that if lead salts where added into the mix it would shorten the drying time or dry a mixture that normally would not dry of its own accord.
So what are the traditional ingredients of these usable mixtures?
Carriers
Oils Drying. Tung. Linseed. Walnut. Poppy.
Non drying. Almond. Olive.

Volatile carriers. Alcohol. Tutpentine. Oil distillates.
*Now the drying oils can be a carrier and the finish*

Resins Copal. Venice Turpentine. Canada Balsam. Pine resin.
Amber. Shellac.

Wax Bees. Carnuba.

Sicative Heavy metal salts.

Now there are some items I have left out and of course we now have synthetic versions.

So one of the many versions of Slakum I have

Boiled Linseed oil (It is not really boiled it is oil with a Sicative added)
Turpentine
Carnuba wax
Venice turpentine
Alcohol
Some versions add Antimony chloride to darken the wood also plaster of Paris to act as grain filler.

One of the trade finishes make it by the gallon sort of thing consisted of.

Alcohol
Pine resin
Finely ground glass cullet as grain filler.
The final polish was given to the stock with wax.

One of the most expensive

Walnut oil with Vandyke Brown Artist oil paint added
Amber This is prepared by roasting and it gives off extremely noxious vapours
Talcum powder as grain filler
Turpentine.
Terebene dryers

So to me they are all versions of the same story with a twist here and there.

And finally one recipe given to me by a professional member of the gun trade though it was some time ago now but if the truth be known it my be still in use.

50/50 turpentine and polyurethane varnish adding it smells ok and when you give it a final polish it looks ok to and a lot cheaper.

As for my self I use red oil on the stock for the colour then a couple of coats of Talcum powder mixed in Garnet French polish to seal the wood and fill the pores applied with a brush then cut back to the surface. Next a mixture of artist�s refined linseed oil and turpentine with Terebene driers as finishing oil. With that classic dull sheen given to the stock using a wax polish I did make my own but I now use a polish by Fiddes & Sons the best I have come across. I use this oil wax finish on gun stocks because it is waterproof extremely flexible scratches do not show very much and you can always re finish it by just applying a little oil with your hands and re waxing.

For those interested in French Polishing, there are a few good videos on U Tube and also a great write up on Wikipedia.
Here is what I use along with the cotton ball/s and cotton fabric for the pad. Some use cheesecloth, I have but doesn't hold up long and then you get strings of cloth in your finish.


This picture is about as large a project that I can handle comfortably. it is about 21" in diameter and is a replica of a Shaker snake foot candle stand.



Damascus was posting his as I was writing mine. As he said there were many types of stains, and ingredients for that "perfect" finish. Thanks for posting it, and please post a picture of your finish.

Excellent work David. You're right, I'll probably end up with a simple shellac coating on the wood.

damascus, thanks for the info, I'd always wondered about "Slakum". In your recipe, does "Venice Turpentine" mean the thick, artist-grade type? Also, are the amounts of the three main ingredients equal?

By the way, what are your opinions on an initial weak solution Copper Sulfate soak when refinishing damascus or twist barrels? Is it superior to a 10-15% ferric chloride etch?

Thanks
Ken

Thanks Ken.

Damascus, years ago I loved to refinish old bamboo fly rods, strip the old silk thread and alligatored varnish off. You talk about trade secrets, in the hey day of bamboo fly rods the finish put on was to each maker and kept a secret.
I had found that using spar varnish was very close and the trick was to use very thin coats and to use a fine tip camel hair brush to get no air bubbles. The results looked great especially using silk thread and if a light yellow was used, the finish was almost translucent. That was when I didn't need glasses to see the windings.

Thanks. Good timing, I've got three I need to refinish at some point. Too bad none of them were made by Orvis, I think one is a South Bend and another is a Heddon. For my fine work I use a bench mounted extendable magnifier with a built-in fluorescent light. Other than that, I'm only up to 1.75X on my reading glasses...