building a GPR kit ?'s

[ryzman]

claypipe,
so you did not apply a stain at all on your gpr kit? it looks very dark so maybe i didnt understand so well.

 

[Pete Gaimari]

Did you put the stripes in the stock? It looks great.

 

claypipe,
so you did not apply a stain at all on your gpr kit? it looks very dark so maybe i didnt understand so well.

Other than the ramrod, no stain was used on this kit. First, I recontoured the stock to my liking, using a multi face wood rasp. Then, I lightly sanded the stock to remove any gouges left by the rasp. That was followed up by scraping the stock smooth with pieces of broken glass. Once, all that was done, using my bare hands, I rubbed in the first coat of Tru-Oil. I let that dry for a week, then smoothed that out with degreased 0000 steel wool. I repeated the process of applying the Tru-Oil the same way till I had four coats. After the last coat was dried and smoothed out, I rubbed it down with a woolen rag and Birchwood Casey's Beewax. Later, I applied Mother's carnuba wax and cleaned the stock periodically with Murphy's oil soap.

Did you put the stripes in the stock? It looks great. Pete

The color and the stripes are natural to the wood. The stock jumped out at me the first time I opened the box. That piece of wood, by itself, was worth the $125 I paid for the kit. Its European black walnut. Over the years, I have been offered some serious coin for this rifle. I mean for it to go to one of my sons.

CP

 

[Zonie]

Your answer gives me a reason to climb back up on my soapbox and mention something to those folks who are new to working with Walnut (or any wood for that matter).

When you file or sand Walnut the resulting wood will look very light. Much lighter than one would expect to see for something made of Walnut.

Looks are sometimes deceiving.
In reality, there is often a lot of grain figure hidden right before your eyes.

Before going down to the local hardware store and buying some Walnut stain or something similar wet the bare wood with water.
It will instantly darken, some areas more than others. When it drys out it will once again look light and plain.

That "wet look" is exactly what it will look like when it is oiled with a clear oil and once oiled it will stay looking that way.

If your working with Maple, wetting the wood won't produce any large change of color but for you folks who have a Curly Maple blank, wetting the wood will show you exactly what color the wood will be if you don't use a stain on it.

Stains will bring out the curl in Maple because the wood where the curl is will absorb more stain than the areas between the stripes.

Stains on Walnut on the other hand tend to cover up any contrasting look in the woods grain pattern.

 

[Pete Gaimari]

Thanks for getting back on this, so a flinter is okay to build just represents an early period on that rifle and then they were either made cap lock or modified to be a cap. I will look into those book suggestions thanks again

I could be wrong, but I think the early Hawken flints were full stocks. The fur trade is the era i'm interested in, so i'm trying to learn about it.

Look at the rifles in this link. The bottom one is a replica, but I believe it's accurate.
http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/museum/guns/guns.html

 

[ryzman]

thank you zonie,
ya im really surprised at the darkness achieved by not applying a stain.