part two.

by John Meeker , West End of Lake Erie, Monday, January 23, 2012, 22:05 (4636 days ago) @ John Meeker

With my own 'for the money' refinishes, the schedule of coats generally goes something like this:

1. NGR stain to taste. sand as needed and recoat, till figure is clear.

2. Shellac wash coat to fix it. Mebbe brushed or sometimes French polished on.

3. Some sort of thin homemade rubbing varnish to seal the preceding steps, but not always.

4. Exactly what is used is depending on required field performance

a. I could finish off with a shellac French polish using the color of shellac to suit the figure for a 'fair weather gun'

b. sometimes a Deft rattle-can laquer spray will do for the job, if cost is a concern. Easily renewed and more water resistant than folks will believe. Quick.

c. Varieties of thinned marine varnish, sprayed or carefully brushed. You don't want to sand thru the coats, tho. It'll leaver 'windows' when recoated. Very good for tough usage, inside the stock and out.

d. I don't do 'factory style' catalyzed finishes. They are tough indeed, today and don't know how I could possibly improve upon their performance. One of the most hideous failures of my career involved a modern Browning rifle stock, with factory coats of 'wood' coloring over a thick plastic filler.

e. Mostly, expensive SxS double work is in shellac, building it up in the pores over a soaking, thinned spar varnish base, sometimes not. A few final passes with what are called toppings, which are the very purest top layer of a settled jar of shellac, and it is a HARD finish. It's the classic "French polish". It's finish coated it with tough waxes, like Renaissance Wax. It does well for me, short of duck blinds, boats, and soaking immersions. [I finally switched to a Mossycamo 835 for such use: rocks, grit, dog paws, muddy hands, etc don't bother it a bit]

f. Recently, the advantages of natural resin marine varnishes in new hi-tech mixes have been seized upon the more sophisticated Custom Guild craftsmen and artists. I don't have the names to hand, but for someone who has the experience and knows what mistakes may be made AND how to fix them, such marine varnish is about as good as fossilizing the wood. The off-the-shelf wiping varnishes at "Big Box" home-improvement stores are pretty close to these, for the money.

Someday, I expect that vacuum impregnation of the actual wood cellular structure will become more widely applied to such projects, and the 'art and craft' of laborious hand applied finishes will see a slow fade, except for the dedicated home enthusiast, loyal to his beloved oils to the last.

As to being a finish 'guru', I'm not all that hot compared to the top flite national level folks. At least I can speak their language, tho. I've been fortunate to study under the real thing, and to work with people who have superior knowledge and skills to mine. Mostly what I know and can do is a reflection of those associations. Let me know when y'r next generation batch is ready, and I'll field test it for you on another stock.

Best, John

AFTERWORD: Since that time, I've pretty much settled on a 'working stock' finish that uses some marine varnish -- spar varnish, a small amount of BLO for better 'rub' application qualities, and mineral spirits. For that matter Lin-speed and the other rub-on commercial gels work well. Min-wax's spar varnish -- spray or padded on has a nice amber cast to it, f'r instance. Mostly, it's just patience and the willingness to keep trying until you get the results you need. A great finisher named George Frank {Adventures in Wood Finishing] stated that "you will never be a good finisher until you have the courage to wash off a failed finish and try again until you get it right."

So have courage -- with all the good pre-packaged commercial gunstock finishes out there it's hard to really do a bad job.