curly maple

[john wood]

Hi all,
I'm building a Hawkin rifle and have a nice halfstock with a lot of curl BUT....it is very light colored curl. In some some places it's barely visible. What can be done to bring out the curl in this stock but not make the whole thing dark?? Should I send it back and request another stock??
Any help is most appreciated!!!

THANKS!!! .............Capgun

 

[paulvallandigham]

Get some orange stain from Homer Dangler products( Jim Klein now sells them), and then use some of his Honey Maple on top of it. The stain takes more to the curly grain, than to the harder wood between the grain. If the stock is too dark for your tastes, you can always use steel wool to take it back down to whatever lighter color you want.

Use all stains on scrap pieces, before putting them on the stock itself to find the color you like. Expect the color to be "darker" when an oil finish is applied over it. If you wipe the scrap wood with your test samples dried on it, using a damp cloth, the water will give you an idea how much darker an oil finish will leave the wood. Some stains lighten up in color over time, as the stock is exposed to UV light. However, oils tend to darken somewhat from the UV light, so the colors may not seem to change much over the years.

When I don't have scrap pieces available, I test the stains in the barrel mortise of the stock, where the end result will be covered from view by the barrel! :thumbsup:

 

[Birddog6]

That is the nature of the curly wood & also what is considered when it is priced. So it depends on what you paid for it whether you should send it back or not. If it was supposed to be a Premium ++ or +++ and you paid $ 150-200 more, I would send it back if I was not pleased with it. But if you bought a regular curly maple or even a std. hard premium stock & no upgrade, then you probably got what you paid for.

Couple of the guys on here have use Lye to bring the curl out more & seem to have success with it. I have not tried it as it is almost impossible to get lye here cause the Meth makers use it to make drugs, so nobody will carry it anymore.

I don't like the thought of using lye, as I don't think you can really know if you got it ALL neutralized or not, as you have no idea the depth the lye went. (But that is just me... :idunno: )

As Paul mentioned, inside the barrel channel is a place you can run a few samples. However beecause it is sometimes rough cut in there, it may show more false curl than what the sanded outside will actually be.

Keith Lisle

 

[Tim Ott]

I use black fiebings leather dye,( buy it at shoe repair shops)over whiskered wood,let it dry the sand it off with 220 grit. It will pop the curl. Then apply whatever color you fancy over that.

 

[LRB]

Ott, how does that workout in carving?

 

[Birddog6]

I use black fiebings leather dye,( buy it at shoe repair shops)over whiskered wood,let it dry the sand it off with 220 grit. It will pop the curl. Then apply whatever color you fancy over that.

I have thought of that several times, but just didn't have the nerve to do it once I get one all the way down to staining....... :idunno: I keep envisioning me resanding on it for a week to get all the black off ! :shocked2: Guess I should try it on a piece of scrap.

Keith Lisle

 

[Zonie]

If you haven't gotten to the staining part of building your gun don't worry.

You say "with a lot of curl..." and if the curl is showing up nicely on a unstained piece of wood it will REALLY show up after staining.

Folks who are new to working with Curly wood often don't understand exactly what they are looking at.

The newly sanded wood will have sort of an iridescent striped look but it really isn't very impressive.

The curly woods aren't really curly. The grain is wavy. It looks like this little drawing.

The waves get cut off when the wood is machined or sanded leaving the "end grain" showing between the normal grain that is parallel to the surface.

Those end grains will absorb a whole lot more stain than the parallel grained areas so they will end up MUCH darker. That is when you can really see the stripes.

As was mentioned, the high priced high quality wood will have many more stripes and they will be fairly uniform thruout the length of the stock.

The lesser (and more affordable) woods may end up with some "open" areas where there are few stripes but for the most part, if you bought a good piece of wood the open areas will just add some interest to the overall look of the gun.

If you can't wait until you get to the staining part of building, use some fine sandpaper to sand the bottom of the barrel channel smooth. Then apply a little ALCOHOL BASED stain and let it soak in and dry. Maybe a couple coats of Walnut?
Then take the stock outside into the sun and dampen the stained area with a wet rag. THAT is what it will look like after the finishing oils are applied.
Oh, without applying the finishing oils the look of the stained area will return to a rather unimpressive "colored wood" look when the water drys.

 

[Roy]

:haha: been there and done that Keith :haha: although it didn't take anywhere near a week .. :rotf:

 

[Birddog6]

:haha: Yes, but I am dealing with 4 major obstacles you are not,....... :idunno: old, dumb, despise backing up, & hate to change to something I don't know will work !! :rotf:

Keith Lisle

 

[Packdog]

This has black leather dye applied in selected areas after other stains were applied but while it was still wet. Just about all my recent stocks are done that way. Dangler's orange, then med brown, then dark brown, and then black dye in selected areas and then thinned. Rubbing back in between the browns with a alcohol soaked rag. Staining for me is a mixing of 4 different colors.
I have also tried applying it in large areas and then the sanding back begins. Lots of work to keep it from being muddy in my experience.
I tried painting one black before staining one time. I can strongly suggest NOT trying that unless you just want to practice sanding. Man, that was a mistake. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

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[Roy]

:thumbsup: you do some purty work there :thumbsup:

 

[Jason Lewis]

i've done a lye treatment before, it works just fine with no ill effects. you can find lye at the hardware store. it's proffesional strenght drain cleaner.

 

[Tim Ott]

Wick I ain't much of a carver, so I have know idea. :hmm:

Keith, I did the black thing to my latest build.it's over there in the Photos forum,called the seed tick rifle. It's a bit tough to see that stock solid black,but after you get it sanded,then you see it's all worth it. JMHO :v

 

[Bob Gular]

A traditional Aqua Fortis treatment will give you the best character definition on curly maple. It's more difficult to use than stain, but the results are worth the trouble.

 

[john wood]

Mornin Jim,
Thanks to you and all who gave me some help here! I've been leaning towards trying some Aqua Fortis on this stock. What say ye ??

........cap gun

 

[Zonie]

IMO, Aqua Fortis is an interesting and Historically Correct thing to use.

It does have a few drawbacks.

Even though it is pretty much "killed" by dissolving the iron (or steel) the Nitric Acid is still active and will need to be neutralized after bringing out the color.
If left un-neutralized, the acid will attack the metal parts that are installed into the wood.

The process for using AF is to apply it and let it dry. Then you must use some source of heat to heat the surface up.
Some have tried using a flame but this is dangerous because it can easily turn the surface black or char the wood around any carvings that exist.
Many have found that one of the heat guns used for removing paint works much better without the potential charring.

Another thing about AF is you never know what your going to end up with. The color will depend on the strength of the AF and the wood.
Three different trees may make curly maple but the wood from each of them will end up a different color after using AF.

On the bright side, if the color isn't what you want you can apply a diluted alcohol based stain to tint it more to your liking.

Like all non oil based stains, AF will look rather light and plain after heating it. It is only when you go out into the sunlight and apply a bit of water to the surface that you will see what the finish oiled surface will actually look like.

 

[mountain-man740]

What do you use to neutralize aqua fortis and how, i am leaning towards this myself on my 1st build

 

[Zonie]

Some folks use baking soda and others use household ammonia (full strength).
A very very very weak solution of lye water would also work.

Lye water by the way does not attack brass, bronze or German Silver so using it won't harm any inlays or furniture on your gun in the future.
It does have a fondness for human tissue though.

 

[mountain-man740]

Thanks

 

[bioprof]

If you use aquafortis, make sure you dilute it. I've had to dilute it as much as 10:1 or 15:1. The best way to determine how much to dilute it is to do lots and lots of experimentation on pieces of wood from the same blank or stock. The first couple of times I used my homemade aquafortis, the stocks turned out almost black.