Bark inclusion ideas

[SDSmlf]

I am still in favor of leaving the knot as is, though the shellac method in the Potterfield is easy enough and looks good, at least for while in my experience (I’ve seen such shellac repairs develop checking in them over time).

Just as an example of factory knothole from over 50 years ago, here is a photograph of a Winchester 94 I purchased new while in high school with a fairly large repair, though I’m not sure what the repair material was, the old man called it plastic and I got the gun with a discount and a few boxes of shells tossed in.

For what it is worth, the bluing is about worn off the gun, but ‘patch’ in the stock is still holding.

 

[oldwood]

Use dark brown stained epoxie in the void and crack. Don't worry about some "expert" inferring your rifle is substandard due to an epoxie patch on it. Can't please everyone , their loss. For yrs. , I had a standing order for cracked , defaced , mineral streaked , ant and termite damaged gunstocks. Made a lot of fine guns of reduced price wood. Never heard anyone gripe about , " OH , this fine rifle is so defaced by a termite , I just can't hunt another day with it. " Yea , right. Most critics are simply jealous of your work. Have courage , just fix it.

 

[Texcl2]

I’m not worried about that, I like to have as close to a period looking repair as possible. So far all the period fillers I’ve seen have been black. The inclusion is pretty small so even being black it’ll probably blend in regardless. I’m going to be using tannic acid under aquafortis so there’s gonna be a good amount of black color to the stock. The cool thing is this can be represent a utilitarian gun that would have that kind of repair and feel good about it. I’m also thinking about scraping it so there a bit of contour left by the scraper hitting the grain. Not a ton but a hint of it but we will see. I will go where the project takes me ….. ah who am I kidding, I’ll probably glue in a patch lol.