Distressing Gun Stocks! Ways Of Aging Them?

[Mulebrain]

I find many threads on aging barrels and locks, but not too many on aging, and distressing stocks.

What are some ways to get that new/newer stock to match all the aged hardware??

Mule

I used the term distressing from my furniture background. It may or may not relate to gun stocks.

For example look at guns from L.E. Williams. Guns are new, but look like straight out of the past!

 

[benvenuto]

ditressing must be subtle if its going to look good.

I saw a TV show about doing it to furniture once.

The amateur went at this table it with a ball pein hammer and a 1x1 with half a dozen nails stuck in the end (wormholes!) then rubbed everything with bootblack!!! :cry:

the professional just sanded back the finish on the edges with 600 grit and a rubber block, and tipped a few buckets full of gravel out on the table i think he also used some fine chain to muss up the legs.

so I suggest, go through the motions of using the gun, work out wear the "natural" wear will be, and then work on accererating it. I personally don't like the idea of dirty looking wood finishes, but I think theres some sense in that "softly softly" gravel and sanding approach I saw.

 

[Mulebrain]

I know that in distressing furniture, one manufacture I saw used a piece of pipe with four 12" lengths of log chain! They would smack the casegoods with it, and it is still done today.

I don't want to flog my gun stocks tho :crackup:

 

[benvenuto]

I heard of prussian soldiers getting 300 lashes for a dirty musket, but doing that to a poor innocent piece of furniture!!!
:nono:

 

[rich pierce]

go to www.firelocks.com and see Eric Kettenberg's guns. They are not distressed but worn in the places that guns wear naturally, and the finish darkened in areas where they normally accumulate grime. One way of doing this is to stain much darker than desired then rub it back on wear areas to a lighter tone.

 

[brian turpin]

I'm not trying to be a smarty pants, but wouldn't aging or distressing a gun kind be not period correct? I've seen folks who were into the French Indian period with guns that had been treated so they appeared to be 200 years old. I would think the normal wear and tear of a couple years use would be the thing. :hmm:
Bimbo

 

[Mulebrain]

I'm not trying to be a smarty pants, but wouldn't aging or distressing a gun kind be not period correct? I've seen folks who were into the French Indian period with guns that had been treated so they appeared to be 200 years old. I would think the normal wear and tear of a couple years use would be the thing. :hmm:
Bimbo

I understand, but I am not referring to reenacting. Just how to best make a new gun look old :thumbsup:

 

[gordy]

To Me!the staining and rubbing system seems to appear more natural.Most folks would try to keep their weapon looking new as long as possible.Some of the Goverment issue weapons were quite shoddy after much use,but a personal weapon was treated with more respect.Remember that a gun was a large investmet and for most folks was not replaced easy.

 

I agree. If I want a gun that looks 200 years old, I'll buy a 200 year old gun. Now, using a staining and rubbing technique that gives the soft appearance of wear I think adds charm and character, but it's still a new gun.

You won't catch me hooking up my brand new longrifle to the back of my truck and dragging it down a gravel road to distress it. Seems ridiculous to me.

 

[Okwaho]

This is a subject that comes up fairly regularly in reenacting circles when reenactors,usually beginners, want something {primarily weapons and horns} to look "200 years old".Seasoned reenactors rarely take this position. There is a middle ground,however,with which I tend to agree and that is to show some wear depending on the individual circumstances.For instance I am 71 years old and portray a 17th and 18th century Mohawk.I carry a French fusil ca.1680-1690 copied from a fusil taken from a dead Abenaki in 1697.Thus in a F&I event I would be carrying a gun built some 65-75 years earlier.When I had the gun built I wanted it to look as if I had been carrying it for at least 40-50 years because for it to look brand new would be at best ludicrous.My axe is copied from the combination of two early spike axes and I hafted it making it look well used. My horn is a Ca. 1815 horn from Ebay which is a dead ringer for one dated in the 1690's and the strap is a strap copied from the strap of a pre 1721 bag in Paris using very small and very correct wampum.

It's one thing to make articles look 200 years old and I think it's inappropriate but I see nothing wrong with making some articles look older and used without overdoing it.I note that most of those in the 200 year old group are relatively young which emphsasizes the silliness of such aging when a young {20's}warrior persists in hauling around a gun and axe which would have been carried by his grandfather or even great grandfather.The same rationale and criticsm applies to White reenactors.I might add that I have attended two events where I was asked if it was permissible to carry an old gun.I wasn't sure how to answer so I just said I didn't know.
Tom Patton :m2c:

 

[WSmitty01]

I been draggin my Hawken throught the woods for 30 years, it looks plenty aged!!! Use it a lot, just keep huntin and shootin and it will pick up the aged look naturally. I'm with most of the believers, that aging your stuff to look a hundred years old would not look natural!!

 

[Stumpkiller]

:imo: That's what you want when reenacting. A gun that looks 5 or 10 years old, but one that's been used and carried daily in that time.

There's something liberating about having a few dents and stains in the wood and metal of a gun. You don't fear adding more to it near so much.

It gives a gun "warmth" that some of the technically and artistically superior custom arms lack. They stand out like ballerinas at a rodeo.

 

[Stophel]

I used to be really opposed to anything but the lightest amount of "aging", with the idea that surely everyone else takes care of their guns like I do. But then I got to thinkin'...how many old shotguns and .22 rifles have people brought to me to fix that are 30-50 years old and look HORRIBLE? Almost all of them. Brown and rusty, varnish chipped off, wood cracked/busted, filthy, crummy, etc. In fact, many of them look worse than most 18th century guns I see!!!

I still think one needs to be VERY careful when one goes about "aging" a gun. and please, no black spray paint!!!

When I see old guns that have any black on them, it is because they still have some old surface varnish left. This varnish turns a smoky black color that is still somewhat translucent. It is dark in the nooks and crannies where hands don't rub the color off. I am told this is an effect of the lead carbonate drier in the varnish reacting with the air. It DOES NOT look like black paint!!! If I can find some kind of black pigment that is transparent/translucent, then I think I may give it a try in order to build a "fake" gun.

Usually, when I see old guns, there is little, if any, surface varnish left anyway. The wood is dirty. Worn, scratched and dinged up a little, but not black.

 

[reddogge]

I like to age mine naturally through shooting, camping, hunting, carrying, etc. They get some usage dents and dings pretty fast. Also I'm not a brass polisher either.

 

[brubincam]

why would anyone want their gun to look 200 yrs old to reanact, they were new when they were used in the 1700s, if the guns looked 200 yrs old back then the guys would have figgered they lost the war already,,,, :sorry:

 

[rich pierce]

Look in your closet if you grew up shooting modern guns. Here's what's in mine:
1890's Lefever 12 ga that belonged to my great grandfather- this was my first bird gun when I was 14.
1960's JC Higgins .22 rifle
1967 Remington 700, 6 mm
1980's Remington 870, 12 ga
That's not to mention the ones that came and went.
If I had to go to war right now, from my house, bringing my own gun (as happened in the Revolutionary War), I'd take the 1967 Remington. I guess that gun is 38 years old now. If I'd had to go from my house in 1966 with my own gun, I'd be taking the 12 ga Lefever, and it would have been 75 years old and used by 3 generations of Pierces.

Most folks of modest means used to start out with hand me downs and even after they got new guns, kept the old ones in the family. If you read original documentation about the guns that colonial militia brought with them at the start of the Revolutionary War, you find the officers such as Washington were appalled at the condition and age of many of the guns the men carried. As the war progressed and got bigger and longer, this was largely corrected, often with hastily built new guns.

A Redcoat would be carrying a fine new Bess and was required to keep it shining. George Washington would be carrying a fine officer's fusil made by the best American maker or a similar fine English piece. Old Israel Putnam would probably be hauling what he used in the French and Indian War, because it worked for him there and took many an enemy.

The most beat up gun I ever handled was my father in law's 94 Winchester 30-30 that he bought in 1940 or so and used through the 1980's. It was in the barn, back of the pickup truck, on the tractor, shot a lot. It had almost no original finish left and the stock was dried out and cracked. It's pretty shocking what 40 years of near daily use will do to a gun. But if a deer or a coyote got in its sights, it didn't stand long. George was a hard working man who provided well for his family but in those days couldn't afford new guns. Best and quickest shot I've ever known. He'd have done well with Morgan's riflemen.

So the newness of your gun might vary a lot depending on your station in life.

 

[Donny]

A professional truck driver doesn't drive the same semi for 25 yrs. Don't you think a successful longhunter would upgrade ole Betsy several times?? I think even a well cared for gun would be beaten all to hell rather quickly by a longhunter/plainsman etc fighting and hunting daily outdoors 24 hrs/day?? = new gun/beaten up vs old mellow gun well cared for?? :front:

 

[Stophel]

There were only a HANDFUL of "longhunters" and only during a very specific time frame. Fully 80% of the population were FARMERS. The rest were tradesmen. Often the farmers were also the tradesmen. The beat up 30-30 or the rusty single shot .22 is the equivalent of the "barn gun" or "beater gun". A lot of people don't take care of their[url] guns...in[/url] fact, I'd bet MOST people don't really take care of their guns.

Now, the 40 year old model 12 needs to be equated in 18th century terms. If the year is supposed to be 1770, and you want a gun like the model 12, you need to have a gun that was made at least in 1730 or earlier. Don't say it's 1770 and carry a beat up looking gun that is of 1770 style! Make it an old Dutch trade gun, or an English dog lock or something. Guns can get crummy really quickly, but perhaps not that quickly!!!

 

[Mulebrain]

Well now! I guess it is just fine to brown barrels, and not make the stocks look as old as the barrel :: :hmm:

Makes much of no sense at all :haha:

 

[Donny]

I have seen a quite few guys re-enacting longhunters/mountain man. I have yet to run across one guy portraying a farmer. ::