Staining Maple tips....

[Joe Yanta]

I am about ready to staining my maple stock for NW Trade Gun. I have finished several stocks before but always in Walnut. Every time I have stained maple before it tends to bloch on me, looking spotty.

I have heard of two methods of sanding.

One, only sand down to 180 grit. This tends to leave the grain more porous and will take more stain thus leaving the stain more consistant.

The other is to finish to 320 grit. This tends to leave the grain tighter and not to accept the stain as readily in the softer areas more consistant with the harder areas.

I will probably use alcohol stains with an oil finish.

Any tips or pitfall warnings will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Joe Yanta

 

[Donny]

Some folks use walnut stain on maple to bring out the curl, and then a coat of maple stain. ::
I don't sand Trade guns when I make them, just scrape, as Kit Ravenshere examined many original trade guns and says they were just scraped.
OBTW, the Museum of the Fur Trade site has some pics of originals. :winking:

 

[54JNoll]

I use alcohol based stains. Try thining your stain 50% with mineral spirits. It will take more coats to get the color you desire but should also alieviate the blotchy effect. You can also blend blotchy areas by using straight mineral spirits or rubbing alcohol and a lint free rag. Wet the rage and rub back and forth over the lines to blend them.

 

[Zonie]

54JNoll: Do alcohol based desolve into Mineral Sprits? I thought those were oil?

Thinning the stain with a little distilled water, or dampening the stock with water will also work.

 

[54JNoll]

Good question. I guess I really do not know the answer. I have used Danglers stains thined with Mineral Spirits with good success and I do know for a fact his stains are alcohol based. I tried his stains straight and blending was much harder. Lately I have used the Stains from Laruel Mountain Forge. I like them better. I thought they were alcohol based too but I really do not know.

However, one could always dilute alcohol bases stains with alcohol and be safe either way.

 

[cptleo1]

LMF stains are alcohol based for sure

 

[LSU TIGER]

I treat the LMF stains as a concentrate and cut them with denatured alcohol 2 to 1. So, if the stain is 4 oz, I add 8 oz of alcohol and store in a jar. Their cherry stain is very red and I cut it a lot more.

 

[Birddog6]

I usually use Danglers stains or Fiebing's shoe leather dye & thin with alcohol or wash out/in with alcohol & 0000 steel wool.
Never have had blotching problems with either one & have always been able to blend them both easily.

This is a Bucks .40 cal rifle I built & it has 4 heavy coats of dark brown Danglers stain & then rubbed out with rubbing alcohol
& 0000 steel wool. Then it has about 20 coats of Formby's Tung Oil hand rubbed into it. All natural striping & the more I rubbed
them the more they came to life..... I wish I could find 20 stocks such as this one...

 

These are great tips but not for trade gun finish!

The origional guns were scraped, as stated before. They were the cheapest of the cheap guns and they were not even scraped very well!

In addition, the origional invoices and orders from the factors in the field specified that the stocks should be very dark as the Indians would not purchase the light colored stocks. The factors specifically stated that they would accept no more stocks with light colored wood.

Usually some European beech was the wood, stained dark.

The fancy wood with lots of curl and smoothly scraped and finished surfaces was usually saved for the plantation grade guns, not the ones traded to the trappers and Indians! Striped maple is going to look a bit out of place.

Not much you can do about it if you are at the finisning stage.

:sorry:

 

[Joe Yanta]

I scraped till I was blue in the face. I find scraping a very efficient method of removing wood. I also find it efficient to use sand paper in the final stages too.

Here is my sad story.

I used alcohol based stain "Transfast" $10.00 per ounce stuff. I tried it in different strengths on a mulitude pieces of maple. Not my stock, but pieces of maple I had laying around. The stock was wiskered 4 times and ever so lightly sanded not scraped between wiskerings.

I applied the stain and it came out perfect. I let it stand in a quiet area of my basement to dry.

I gave it a check the next morning and I almost threw up. It looked like if you would take a tooth brust, stick it in shoe polish or heavy paint, and then take your thumb nail and drag across the bristles flicking thousands of tiny dropplets of spots all over your stock.

I sanded out what I could with 400 grit.

The kit is a TVM. When I started work on the stock I was pleased that it was the homeliest piece of maple I ever saw. But the more I worked with the stock, more and more figure came out. It is a fancy piece of maple from butt to muzzle.

So back across town to buy another $10 ounce of darker stain.

Used the darkest mixture I could conjure up and after about a half a dozen staining sessions I have a pretty decent looking stock.

It is a very dark redish brown. I would say it is about the color of one of those buckeye nuts. Chestnuts I think.

I am not at all disappointed in the stock at this stage. If the light is on it just right you can see the fiddleback or tiger stripe running in it. Sometimes, I would have payed $200 xtra for a piece of wood like this. But I didn't want it this time. OH well!, It sucks to me.

I really would like to know what went wrong. I really enjoyed building this gun and think I will do a TVM Leman next year. Maple hates me.

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate them. I'll post a picture when I'm done.

I put the first coat of finish on this morning.

Joe Yanta

 

[Zonie]

Quote ...It looked like if you would take a tooth brust, stick it in shoe polish or heavy paint, and then take your thumb nail and drag across the bristles flicking thousands of tiny dropplets of spots all over your stock...."
__________________________________________________________
Joe, you didn't by any chanch use some steel wool in your final sanding/whiskering process did you?

The only time I've heard of this happening is when someone did use steel wool to "smooth things out".

For those wondering what steel wool has to do with spots, the little steel fibers break off in the wood pores and lay there waiting. When you apply a alcohol or water base stain, the steel turns to rust, resulting in thousands of little freckels and bloches.
:curse: :curse: :curse: ::

 

[Joe Yanta]

No, I learned that lesson a long time ago. These were a little different from the "steel wool acne". I try never to use steel wool unless to remove the gloss from final finish. Excellent conclusion though Zonie.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps I put too much on. Maybe that caused the stain to micro-bead over the entire surface. The when they dried out they left the freckles. I sort of rule that out because when I was experimenting with how deep I wanted the stain, I let a thin strip of maple stay emerged in the stain and soak for 20 minutes. It did not do it then.

Joe