A knife customer of mine who is a stockmaker told me about using leather dyes years ago. He(and others) tend to use a lot of black dye on many stocks to highlight the Grain. They coat the stock with it and then sand it off....the softer(darker) wood absorbs the dye more deeply and adds more contrast to the wood. Since then, I've used those dyes, which I use on my Knife sheaths anyway, on my NEF's, Ruger #1, Winchester 69, Savage 24V etc...not to mention some of my friend's stocks that I've refinished. Did my first stock refinishing when I was twelve, and I'm sixty now, so I"ve tried just about everything you can think of; what I use today is what I most like. There are other finishes just as good I'm sure, so it's up to the individual. I do have a picture of My 45/70 and one that show's part of the stock on my Savage 24V on the computer, but have no Idea how to host them.
Leather dyes....we are talking alcohol based dyes, not the water based stains, are available thru Tandy leather at
www.tandyleather.com, or thru any of the knife supply catalogs. They all carry them for those who make sheaths.
I"ve used the Teak Oil from Watco(Lowes carries it) for years. Tried pure linseed oil(takes forever and never dries really), tru-oil, Linspeed,(both of which are "OK"), Pure Tung oil(nearly as good as Teak oil), Danish oil(sucks) and a couple of the poly finishes, both on rifles and my Knife handles, and sort of just stumbled on the teak oil while shopping around. Being a Marine finish designed to penetrate dense woods such as Teak and Mahogany and protect them from Humidity/salt air, it made sense it would work on other woods also exposed to the weather, salt(from sweat) etc. and it does. Easy to apply...just slop it on, wait 15 minutes and slop some more on where it's been more fully absorbed. Wait 30 minutes, then wipe off with a cloth and allow to dry for 10-12 hours( for to touch), depending. I usually do two coats, just to for insurance. The stock is then waxed after waiting a week for the finish to COMPLETELY dry.
Creates a deep, soft lustre type finish that really brings out the beauty of the wood.
In the case of this fiddleback maple stock, I"m going to finish it the way I do my maple knife handles. After the wood has been sanded to 600 grit, it's dampened with a cloth and the grain is "raised" with a blow torch(any heat source works, even a stove burner...just be careful), and the "fuzz" is sanded off with 0000 steel wool. The process is repeated until the wood is smooth when dampened/dried. Since this is maple, I'll use the blowtorch to slightly "char" the softer tiger stripe portion of the stock. Perhaps char is too strong a description..darken slightly with heat is more like it. Basically I take the torch and move it quickly over the wood, working relatively small areas at a time. As I sweep the torch over and over the same area, the wood gradually heats until the softer wood starts to darken slightly. There is a fine line between darken and char. It's real easy to apply too much heat and burn the wood, so you have to have patience and a steady(and quick) hand while doing that. The wood is then again sanded with 0000, and then heated a bit(in the oven set at 150 F) to open up the grain a little. Warm wood absorbs the dye better/deeper. Then I wipe the dye on until I get the colour I think it's going to be. If you use these dyes, I strongly suggest you wait at least 3 days before apply the finish so that the dye THOROUGHLY dries....otherwise it might smear. A second point is that you need to wipe off any excess dye with a cloth so it doesn't "cake" on the surface. After the dye is thoroughly dry, and the colour is such that I doen't need to repeat the process, the Teak Oil is put on and allowed to dry for ONE WEEK before waxing. Patience is necessary, as I found out, to produce a really high quality finish; even though you can achieve satisfactory by hurrying the process. Up to you. Those who have never used a torch to contrast wood, I don't recommend you start on your stock.....practice on a LOT of pine, or other woods first, since the way the torch is applied to the wood is a bit tricky......you have to kind of,uh, SWOOP the torch smoothly onto it. If you stop moving for even a few milliseconds you get a black burn spot which is not always easy to sand out. It's absorbing, fun and I get a lot of satisfaction out of refinishing stocks..you'd be surprised at the nice grain you sometimes find under that dye/filler the companies use. By the way, I don't use filler at all, unless the grain is extemely porous, as it tends to obscure the grain. Usually not a problem with good quality walnut or maple.
