What finish on maple....

[Zonie]

Call me stuffy but the only place I use Minwax is on pine bookshelves.

If someone wants their maple stock to be as dark as walnut they should buy some water based or alcohol based Walnut stain and apply it to the bare wood.

Because the carrier (alcohol or water) evaporates one can put on as many coats of stain as they want to until the desired darkness is reached.

What they put on after staining is up to them but they should remember whatever the finish is, it will darken the stained wood to the same color it is when the stain is still wet.

 

[jdkerstetter]

What Zonie said!

Most of your commercial, hardware store stains are full of pigments that are actually larger than wood poor size. They actually sit on the wood instead of pentrating the wood.

Now some penetration happens with the smaller particles but much sits on the wood. Try this, take some of the sludge at the bottom of a can of stain and smear it on some wood. Is it transparent? No! It is a pigment mud. Obscures the figure in the wood.

The "stains" Zonie is referring to, those use by most people who work with figured wood, are actually "dyes" that are carried by the alcohol or water. Examples are Trans-tint and Mixol. Brownells has a stock dye kit too. They penetrate highly and do not obscure grain. You can "dye" figured maple black and still see the figure...with black stain you might as well paint it.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[ebiggs1]

I don’t think it is as much the solvent used whether water, alcohol or oil based but the type color used. Dyes or pigment.
The pre-mixed stains you find on the home center shelves (Minwax) are typically pigment based stains. Pigments are basically ground chunks of some solid color particles and are mixed with a solvent that bonds the pigment to the wood. These pigment chunks lodge in the surface irregularities, (sanding marks, scratches) and pores of wood. Open grain woods like oak collects these pigments in their pores, which darken the grain, sometimes drastically.
Stains made from dyes dissolve completely in their solvents (usually water or alcohol but can be oil based). When the solvent dries it takes the dye with it and changes the color of the wood cells. This makes a great difference. Tight grain wood such as maple has few places for pigment to get into but it dyes most effectively.
Fancy grade of woods can be masked by the pigmented stains and thus benefit from stains that are made with dyes.

Call me stuffy but the only place I use Minwax is on pine bookshelves

While on this subject, pine wood bookshelves would be a poor use of Minwax pigment stain! Since pine is a blotch prone wood.

As mentioned above in an earlier post, just because the species of walnut was changed to black walnut does not relieve the basic requirement to evaluate each piece of wood on it’s own merit.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

I have used Minwax on hardwood flooring but It's the last thing I would use on a gunstock.

 

[Palepainter]

Would a heat gun work to get the reaction on the Aquafortis?

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Would a heat gun work to get the reaction on the Aquafortis?

Yes, it is what I am using, works great.

 

[Bill Hall]

Would a heat gun work to get the reaction on the Aquafortis?

Works fantastic. I just used one for the first time about last Friday. Up until then, I was using a propane torch, with good results, but it took a lot of practice over the years to learn how to wave that flame over the wood without scorching it. And I would usually slightly scorch the edges of any of the mortices or barrel channel. The heat gun allows you to direct the heat anywhere you want, pretty much as long as you want, with no fear of scorching the wood. At least that's how it works with my heat gun. You may want to practice first on a piece of scrap.

I will never use flame again for aqua fortis. :thumbsup: Bill

 

[garandman]

The Minwax Red Chestnut with wood pre-treatment accomplished pretty much exactly the look I want. Even penetrated about 1/64" into the wood. Now to let it cure, and try both BLO and Tung Oil.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Garandman, Glad you found something that suited you. :thumbsup:

Biggs, I just stated my opinion which I think I can do here.

 

[garandman]

Garandman, Glad you found something that suited you. :thumbsup:

Biggs, I just stated my opinion which I think I can do here.

Thanx to everyone who suggested I also consider Tung Oil, and the info on acid and other traditional stains. Still considering some of the stains from TOTW.

 

[jdkerstetter]

If your kit arrives and it is not maple, as you indicated in another thread that it may not be, don't use the nitric acid stain....unless you test in in an unconspicuous spot first....like in the barrel channel.

Acid stains can cause some very adverse color changes in some woods....like turning walnut black. Even two different pieces of maple can have drastic color differences.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[ebiggs1]

Biggs, I just stated my opinion which I think I can do here.

Did I miss something? :idunno: Still....

 

[Robby]

garandman, Laural Mountain Forge makes some very good alcohol based stains in nut brown and walnut. They will make maple look more like walnut than any other stain I have seen, forget the Minwax. Like any alcohol stain it will fade slightly when exposed to the sun, so you should make it darker than you want the finished gun to look. As for BLO, if that's what you want, go for it, but it will not hold up if being used in wet conditions. "Sutherland Welles" makes a spar varnish that will come as close to a BLO finish as anything I have ever seen if you knock down the shine. I have experimented with making various BLO finishes and every one of them hardens to a high gloss just like any modern finish. S W is made with natural processes and does not contain petro-chamicals, but will protect against the weather, you can wipe it down with BLO at the end of the season and let it firm up all winter. Good luck!!
Robby

 

[garandman]

Thanx....I'm taking a long hard look at the LMF finishes. Do they raise / "whisker" the grain at all?

 

[Robby]

It shouldn't.
Robby

 

[garandman]

It shouldn't.
Robby

Another question - looking at the TOTW website, LMF finishes look a bit more translucent than I want (in my effort to reproduce a USGI finish on maple)

Do they darken / become less translucent with additional coats / applications?

 

[jdkerstetter]

They are supposed to be translucent so they do not obscure the grain. Any of the stains you buy that are made specifically for gun stockers should have this quality. In rifle building thats most people what that.

If you want to obscure the grain so it no longer looks like maple then use an exterior grade stain from one of the big box stores or the hardware store. The contain large and small pigments. The small ones will pentrate and the large will rest on the wood and obcure the grain and it give it that dead one color look of the G.I. rifles. I say exterior as you need the U.V. blockers so that the color resist sun light.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[rich pierce]

There are a lot of options out there. Many of the modern stains are much more brilliant and give a different look than traditional methods. The staining method that is best depends on what you want- maximum color saturation, brilliance, contrast, or a traditional look.

 

[Robby]

garandman, ALL stain is thin paint. LMF is fine grain pigment in an alcohol base and will enter the wood to a certain degree. If you let it dry thoroughly before re-coating it will get darker and darker, unless you keep working it till it re-dissolves what you already laid down and starts to pick it back up. The two colors I mentioned are pretty dark, but again, they will lighten when exposed to the sunlight, as will any stain, but the alcohol base types seems to lighten more. The BLO finish has no UV protection.
Robby

 

[jdkerstetter]

For clarity, there are two types of stains. Pigments stains have particles suspended in the them. Dye stains, on the other hand, contains color that desolves completely in the carrier, whether it be alcohol or water and give far better penetration.

Most gun building "stains" are in fact dyes and that is why they are more translucent and pop the grain so much and enhance maple's figure.

There are U.V. resistent dyes available that don't fade in sunlight as readily as the hardware store stains that are meant for indoor applications like furniture. Transfast is an example of a powdered dye that is used in alcohol or water to make a U.V. resistent stain.

Here's a good link that explains some of this: http://www.finewoodworking.com/Materials/MaterialsAllAbout.aspx?id=2954

Enjoy, J.D.