Lockdown Project

Rust Bluing the Stock Furniture

Whilst the stock oil has been drying and with Mrs Heym out and Listening to the cricket whilst working from home I have been doing bluing.

Essentially you take you steel parts, polish them up to 320 grit, degrease thoroughly, coat with a special bluing solution (lots of special recipes, I have some from a Scottish gunmaker - its probably Haggis piddle), let it rust and then convert the red rust to blue by boiling or steaming.

I have been using a kitchen steamer as both a humid rusting tank and then as a converter.

2888C8B9-D431-488A-A79B-72ED5FCE48D6.jpeg539C8A49-1312-44E3-8F85-276E427942E4.jpeg

Above show them nice and rusty after about an hour

Then steam them hard for about 15 minutes and they look like this

D5F09A31-083B-4DE4-B8B2-AD27D61F11F7.jpeg

They are kind of blotchy and covered with a black powdery residue, but then a soft wire brush and or 0000 wire wool you end up with

4A3FC61D-D1CA-464D-A07D-641E0660EF97.jpeg

And after 9 cycles you end up with a deep blue black finish. After 4 its good, but the further ones make it deep enough to dive into




0E69B75A-0F45-4BF4-938A-5E3091085A94.jpeg
 
And meanwhile I have also been applying red oil. First coat was left for a week and subsequently over the last few days have applied several more, sanding them with 600 grit paper. Colours are beginning come out. I will move to a finishing oil that contains carnuba wax and venice turpentine to add weather protection for the last few coats.
 

Attachments

  • AD26D64D-9836-46FD-95BD-96402F856AD6.jpeg
    AD26D64D-9836-46FD-95BD-96402F856AD6.jpeg
    405.7 KB · Views: 109
  • E6C8E640-4558-4BEF-8D1C-82C725F5BDC3.jpeg
    E6C8E640-4558-4BEF-8D1C-82C725F5BDC3.jpeg
    402.5 KB · Views: 109
Have been watching progress with great interest. When will you begin checkering or are you leaving things smooth? - if checkering will you do the standard diamond pattern (ratio 7 to 2) or perhaps fish scale?
In any event you are achieving a wonderful result which will be a credit to "The Inspiration"
 
Have been watching progress with great interest. When will you begin checkering or are you leaving things smooth? - if checkering will you do the standard diamond pattern (ratio 7 to 2) or perhaps fish scale?
In any event you are achieving a wonderful result which will be a credit to "The Inspiration"
Nope, not going anywhere near checkering as appreciate that it is well beyond my patience and skill levels. Besides this is a target type rifle and they generally aren’t checkered, and Peter Hofer (post video in earlier post) never checkers his rifles - the most beautiful and interesting grain patterns flow through the hand.

Now the big question is whether or not I take the barrel and action that is currently matt blued back to bare metal and rust blue.
 
Finishing Coats of Oil.

I left the stock for a few days for initial oils to harden up. I put the whole rifle together so that I could how it feels with a moderator - I have DPT over barrel one that adds a bit of length, but doesn’t unbalance the rifle.

I have also brewed up a finishing oil where venice turpentine, carnuba wax is added to linseed oil. This helps fill the pores, gives a tougher finish and also speeds up the drying process.

Rub in by hand, let it go tacky, and then buff off with a cloth lubricated by a bit more oil. You can do two ti three coats a day. Each coat taking ten minutes or so.

After everyfew coats you knock in back again with fine wet and dry paper and eventually all the pores are filled. At the biggining if you drag your nails across the grain they catch in the open pores. Once finished they shouldn’t catch in any direction.

And the colours and the grain and the beauty is really beginning to pop.

Here it is with a still wet coat just to give an idea.
70AC2798-C17D-48ED-BD3C-9B8DE9B5BF9D.jpeg
 
That looks fantastic, I hope your absolutely stocked with it... fair play sir that’s a fantastic job and talent you have.... 👍
 
That looks fantastic, I hope your absolutely stocked with it... fair play sir that’s a fantastic job and talent you have.... 👍
Thanks. Yes I am happy, but there are plenty of bits where I could have done things much better, or have had to do a work around etc. I know where these are, most won’t see them, but I can. Biggest error was not taking all the finish off the blank so I could really see the grain in the whole blank. There is a bit of yellowish edge wood on the top of the stock. If I had gone an inch or so lower in the blank I would have had better figure throughout the stock. But on the bright side I still have some useful bits of walnut for other projects.

I have learnt a huge amount, and re realised how much I enjoy using my hands to make things. And its been very good for the soul.

Now that I am on the home strait, it is both rewarding, but also kind of sad, as I actually really enjoy the creative part. It’s now a lot of patience letting the stock dry well between coats. I applied quite a few coats of the finishing oil and this formed a skin. I knocked it back down to the wood again. The pores are well filled but not quite completely filled. I left it for a few days for oils to oxidise and am now building finish back up again. I will knock this back again once there is a skin and by then, with a bit of luck, the pores should be full. Then you have a fine finish in the wood that will last and get better and tougher with age.
 
Filling the Grain

To add to this blog, a few words on finishes for wood. There are two main types:

Oxidising Oils: - these form a complex polymersation when the oil is exposed to oxygen. Linseed Oil is the classic, but others such Tung Oil and Walnut Oil do the same. What happens with linseed oil as it soaks into the wood it forms a complex polymer that binds all the wood fibres together. Think Linoleum on you grandmothers kitchen floor - almost indestructible. Linoleum is pretty much linseed oil mixed with saw dust and sprayed onto canvas.

With an oil finished gunstock you are forcing linseed oil into the grain of the wood and waiting for it to form a skin.

Varnishes / Lacquers / Resins - are fully formed polymers, typically waxes from the surface of leaves (carnuba wax), secretions from insects (beeswax, shellac from the Lac beetle) or resins from the sap of trees - pine resin, that are dissolved in a spirit that then evaporates. There are modern equivalents - polyurethane etc, as well as two pack resins that go off with a chemical reaction.

When finishing a gunstock we typically use a bit of both. With the initial oiling you really want to just use linseed oil. The finest finish comes raw oil, but raw takes a real age to dry. As in at least a week per coat. Hence most use “boiled” oils, which are not really boiled per se, but are treated to provide a quicker reaction to oxygen. Things like Danish Oil are nothing than linseed oil with driers and a bit of solvent. In the Victorian era lead salts were used as driers, which also gave a red tinge to the oil.

So with my stock I started off with a Red Oil, which is made from alkanut root steeped for several weeks in mix of really high grade raw oil, and a high grade boiled oil. On the basis that I do want it to dry, but also want to let it penetrate really well.

After the first oiling I left it for a week by which time the surface felt dry. I probably should have left it quite a bit longer.

But it is an exciting process, but whilst I am reasonably patient, I am not that patient. I applied several more coats of red oil over the next week or so. I want to really pick up the black veins and get colour into the stock. With most of the coats I sanded them in with very fine red garnet paper. I have in past used wire wool, but strands get caught in the grain and then rust :(

leave the sanding slurry on the surface until it goes tacky and then buff it off with hand or cotton rag - car polishing cloth ideal.
 
Filling the grain part 2

After several applications of red oil you have a pretty good finish. To be honest better than most factory wooden stocks with an “oil finish”. I suspect most are dunked in oil, left to soak and then hung for a few weeks to dry, or a spray type wax that gives an oiled type finish.

I didn’t take any close photos of that stage, but stock had many open trenches across it. These are the natural pores of the wood that run close to the surface. The final raising of the grain and sanding opened these up. The oil soaks in and swells them further before polymerising and binding them all together.

Next stage is to fill them. You can carry on with oil. Apply a coat and rub it in. Leave for a few days. Repeat over the six to 12 months. It provides a beautiful a tough finish, but takes a couple of years to fully cure. This was no real issue in the old days when time moved at a different pace and labour was cheap. But 20 minutes a coat to properly rub it in multiplied say £5 cost of labour - thats where the cost of a London best finish comes from.

Or you can cheat. The quickest is to get a can of pretty much used traditional yacht varnish. Ideally that sticky jelly type stuff underneath the skin. Take a blob in your fingers and rub it in. Don’t worry about it looking horrible - it will and you want a thick skin. Leave it to really harden. Then sand it back to the wood. Start with 300, but progressively finer down 1,000 or 2,000 grit. And lubricate the abrasive with linseed oil. You know have a nice hard finish - it’s good for furniture and OK I suppose for guns. But not for a decent piece of wood.

Instead most stockers use a finishing oil which some wax and varnish dissolved into it. There are lots of secret recipes and I suspect my Alex Martin was finished with a mix of the secretion from the scent glands of Haggis.

I have used a mix made from an article on Vintage Guns.

I think I am about half way there now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DRN
Filling the Grain

Below are some photos of the current stock. You can see the “ trenches”, but you can also see nicely filled wood.
 

Attachments

  • 4BC61401-A4E6-42C3-AF7E-2F4C3DEFED8C.jpeg
    4BC61401-A4E6-42C3-AF7E-2F4C3DEFED8C.jpeg
    228.6 KB · Views: 68
  • 7AB04FDA-2253-494F-91F3-3DD488BF9ABD.jpeg
    7AB04FDA-2253-494F-91F3-3DD488BF9ABD.jpeg
    333.8 KB · Views: 68
  • E2F435D4-D01D-4F91-A539-FC56E3D4A73B.jpeg
    E2F435D4-D01D-4F91-A539-FC56E3D4A73B.jpeg
    284.2 KB · Views: 68
And this is what it will be like

0A28FE27-41A2-4D30-9823-13D7A50D2DF9.jpeg
this little gun is WJ Jeffery 410
that I rescued about 15 years ago. It had come in as part of an estate. The stock was black with grime. Gentle cleaning with warm soapy water and then wiping over with acetone revealed beauty underneath. I steamed out the worst of the dents and refinished, although for filling I did use varnish mixed with linseed oil. This little gun has been out in all sorts of weather and its the gun I carry when beating. I make sure its dry and oiled before putting it away, and it gets a finger tip of oil every few months.

And here is a professional on a 100 year old Alex Martin that has been refinished at some point

62CF4EB2-7AD9-460A-BEEF-2D5BCF554087.jpeg

Some do use filler to fill the grain. It tends to fall out, and also masks lots of features. I much prefer the finish to fill the grain. If you look at both of the above you can see a really smooth surface.
 
And this is what it will be like

View attachment 218510
this little gun is WJ Jeffery 410
that I rescued about 15 years ago. It had come in as part of an estate. The stock was black with grime. Gentle cleaning with warm soapy water and then wiping over with acetone revealed beauty underneath. I steamed out the worst of the dents and refinished, although for filling I did use varnish mixed with linseed oil. This little gun has been out in all sorts of weather and its the gun I carry when beating. I make sure its dry and oiled before putting it away, and it gets a finger tip of oil every few months.

And here is a professional on a 100 year old Alex Martin that has been refinished at some point

View attachment 218511

Some do use filler to fill the grain. It tends to fall out, and also masks lots of features. I much prefer the finish to fill the grain. If you look at both of the above you can see a really smooth surface.
I confess I do use grain filler rubbing it in with Trade Secret's Rapid oil, (used to use Purdey's "Slackum Oil" until it became unavailable) waiting until it becomes tacky then polishing (i.e. rubbing off) any excess with Purdey's Warthog "Rubbing Oil". Having said this, when raising the grain I use successive finer wet and dry, finishing with 1500 grain. I know most stockers use fine wire wool but I have found that sometimes tiny bits of wire break off in the pores of the wood.
 
Filling the Grain

Its been a few weeks since the last post. For many days I applied a finger tip full or two of oil and rubbed it in with palm of my hand. Following day buff it off with a polishing cloth.

And as the oil built up on the surface I would knock it with ultra fine red garnet paper and then pumice powder on a cloth.

After a couple of most of the pores were beginning to fill, but it still as if the stock was taking in a lot of oil and some of the pores were bottomless.

I happened to pour some oil into a jam jar lid and after a couple of days it started to thicken. So I left the stock for a few days to let things harden up. Then applied a couple of coats of the thickened oil. And then went up north for a few days fishing and potentially deestalking. ( no water so no fish, and low cloud, muggy and no wind so thought of Caithness Forestry and Red Deer stalking not that appealing- but that’s another story)

Came back and it was setting up nicely. Gave it a good buffing and applied a couple more coats of “thickened oil”.

I then put it for another week. It now has a crinkly shiny varnish type effect and looks horrible, but its just what I want. All the pores are now filled. Its still a bit tacky so will leave it a few more days. And then will ultra fine garnet paper lubricated will oil to take all the skin away and take the finish down to the level of the wood. And will then polish it up with pumice powder.

So nearly there.
 

Attachments

  • 0A1B97F2-2F19-4963-A80C-7FD7F826CE8F.jpeg
    0A1B97F2-2F19-4963-A80C-7FD7F826CE8F.jpeg
    233.1 KB · Views: 95
  • 289773A3-1EE8-4A62-8192-5ECB62FCDD56.jpeg
    289773A3-1EE8-4A62-8192-5ECB62FCDD56.jpeg
    398.6 KB · Views: 92
  • E2793208-4EA8-4521-AFE1-4EE409186CBA.jpeg
    E2793208-4EA8-4521-AFE1-4EE409186CBA.jpeg
    395.8 KB · Views: 95
  • 7E90D96C-CBB1-4675-ACBA-0D8B1645C9A1.jpeg
    7E90D96C-CBB1-4675-ACBA-0D8B1645C9A1.jpeg
    390.3 KB · Views: 93
Finally got an opportunity to give her a try out. 110 good paces in a gentle Argyl mist .. first three shots. Then added a few more.
 

Attachments

  • C1B3A108-6F4B-4B77-B501-5113059F2F4B.jpeg
    C1B3A108-6F4B-4B77-B501-5113059F2F4B.jpeg
    655.9 KB · Views: 149
  • 7E5B94EA-7F21-41BE-8087-8997217C744D.jpeg
    7E5B94EA-7F21-41BE-8087-8997217C744D.jpeg
    417.3 KB · Views: 147
  • 78A329AB-EECF-4B43-A51F-99878E25296C.jpeg
    78A329AB-EECF-4B43-A51F-99878E25296C.jpeg
    437.2 KB · Views: 147
I think the job is done. Stock will get a few more coats over the next few months / years.

Now where’s a hooded crow.
 
Back
Top