What do I use?

[Otter]

This question might be putting the cart WAY ahead of the horse (especially with my CRS disease) but here goes . . .

What are my options, or do any of you have favorites, to apply the "faux" striping on my "to be completed later" Leman rifle? I need ideas for the dye/stain/ink to color the stripes darker than the base wood (plain maple) of the stock. If any of you have done this successfully, please chime in as to what size(s) you used for brushes, too. The rifle will be .58 cal, 1" x 36" GM barrel, Siler Mountain Rifle perc lock, all iron furniture on the full stock.

Thanks a bunch in advance . . .

 

[paulvallandigham]

YOu may be surprised to find that maple stock shows fiddleback when you get it. Why don't you wait to see what you really have before planning on painting it?? MY brother got a plain-- I do mean plain- piece of maple to use to make a buttstock for an underhammer gun. It has absolutely straight grain, with no knots, or burls, or flame, etc. But, when he got finished scraping the wood down ( he doesn't use sand paper) lo and behold, a bit of water showed the stock has gorgeous fiddleback. Fiddleback is thought to be stress lines caused by the wind moving the tree back and forth in gales, causing even the lower trunk to develop these stress lines, or " stretch marks" as my ex-wife used to call them.

Because the stock looked so good, he completely change his plans on finishing it, and used a stain, and then hand rubbed oil to bring out that fiddleblack, rather than hide it with paint.After he applied his stain, he boned the wood, and that brought out even more interesting grain patterns and stress lines in the wood. Its an interesting piece of wook to look at, and I am very happy he didn't cover it up.

The same kind of thing happened to me when I refinished a birch wood stock on a friend's modern .22 rifle. It was covered with some kind of synthetic finish, and a walnut paint. No grain showed when I got it. When I stripped off the finish and paint, the wood had a reddish hue, straight grain, but also showed fiddleback- not often see in birch. I used a red stain to highlight the grain such as it was, then a walnut stain to moot the red stain, and then rubbed in an oil finish. The fiddleback jumped out of the wood, and turned what would be considered a utility grade piece of wood into something interesting to see. MY friend loved the new look to his gun.

 

[Otter]

Paul,

Like I said earlier, I may be getting the cart way ahead of the horse. Yes, I will wait until I actually see the stock before I make a final decision as to what to do. I am by nature a pre-planner and like to have all my bases covered including contingencies. Thanks for the reminder to "take it slow and easy, you'll get a more harmonious outcome."

 

[Doc Arroyo]

I did a refinish of a Leman Rifle a few years back. The wood was dead plain, and the guy wanted a bit of a used finish,

I used a miniwax ebony stain and a few small (1/8" ?) round artist brushes to create the stripes. After the stain dryed for a few days, I rubbed it down with a peice of jean cloth. Then I overstained with Laurel Mountain Lancaster Maple.

Then I rubbed it thin in a few areas, and dirtied up a few others. He had a few dings already, and I did a butterfly repair on a small crack. A few coats of handrubbed TruOil, and it was done.

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the final project, and the rifle has mooved to Wyoming!

 

[Zonie]

I have read that the brushes used by Lemans company to stripe the stocks were about 1 1/2 inches wide. This was based on the fact that the pattern seems to repeat itself at about that distance.

The brushes had the bristles removed leaving 3/16-1/4 inch gaps. The remaining bristles were about 1/8 inch wide.
The individual stripes do vary some indicating that precision in creating the paint brushes wasn't one of the big concerns. This is how they arrived at the width of the brushes.

This was based on studying existing guns, not old paint brushes so it is impossible to know what the length of the bristles were.
IMO, they must have been fairly short, like 1/4 inch or less to keep them from spreading out when they were brushed against the gunstock.

Some folks think the "paint" was India Ink or something very similar as the stripes are very dark.

Hope this helps you.
zonie

 

[rja72]

Are there any good books or other reference materials for finishing stocks? It seems there is a wealth of knowledge here on these posts, but I am not sure I will be able to pull it all together when I get ready to build or refinish some of the guns I own. Thanks

 

[Vaino]

Read somewhere that the wood should be sealed before the ink stripes are applied to avoid the "blotter" effect......Fred

 

[ehoff]

Flehto is right, the stock has to be sealed or your stripes will bleed. Check out Eric Kettenbergs website, he had some information of doing faux stripeing. From what I have read what was used was plain old india ink. My advice as always when trying something new is to practice on scrape first!