I had posted a while back that I was workning restoring the worlds biggest Mauser rifle, actually just doing the woodwork. It had a veeery heavy coat of shellac, I tried stripping it myself and realize that I was just going to make a mess of it so I had a good furniture place strip it for me.
Looks like they did a decent job although I can still see shellac at the bottom of some pores and gouges. The wood is very open grained and looks like elm or something similar.
Two main questions, the wood is very light, almost yellow and I want it brown, so what is the best way to stain it keeping in mind there may be shellac still left in some pores.
Second is how do I finish it.
If I stain I usually use Behlen analine dyes and for finish I put on a coat or two of Tru-oil which is a polmerized tung oil and then finish with a couple coats of boiled linseed.
So there you have it, I am afraid any stain will blotch due to the type of wood and the residual shellac and I dont’ want to have adhesion problems with my standard finish. I don’t want gloss, I want a satin with just a touch of sheen.
Thanks in advance!
Replies
You might try a shellac tinted with alcohol soluable analine stain to the colour you want. It will dissolve into any residual shellac. Then seal it with a coat of superblonde and cover it with whatever you want- possibly a wipe on polish.
I saw a 1934 Mauser the other day. I was amazed at the stupendous fit and finish of the bolt/ receiver. It had been clumsily restocked, but what machining!
Post a picture when you get it done.
Frank
I have never worked with Shellac and an expensive peice doesn't seem like the place to start. There has got to be another way?
As for prewar military guns, few could afford a rifle built with such care and precision today. I have seen them with beautiful tiger striped walnut stocks fitted to the metal like a fine piece of furniture.
Michael
I was also going to recommend tinted shellac since it would give an even color, because it doesn't penetrate the way a pure dye does, and shellac will adhere better than any other finish to any old finish or contaminants left on the stock. Shellac is also easily removed if you don't like how the finish is coming out, it will wash off with alcohol.
That said, I am not an expert on gunstock finishing, shellac, even with another finish over it may not be a serviceable finish for a gun that will actually be used rather than displayed.
John W.
Seems to me, if you used alcohol-based dye, it would disolve any remaining shellac enough to color it too. I'd try it first in the barrel channel or someplace else that won't be visible later and see what happens. Then just use oil-based stain (or nothing) over that and finally Tru-oil (which I thought was polymerized linseed oil, but I've been known to be wrong).
Shellac is the easiest finish imaginable. Mix it fresh and pad it on and you can't go wrong.
Short of being dead drunk and using a dirty roller, you wont mess it up.
If this was a sporting stock, I would have no problem with shellac but I need a natural wood finish, something like one might get from Danish Oil, not a surface finish. Military guns don't have surface finishes.
I cross my heart and promise to try shellac soon but it just isn't the finish for this project unless someone can tell me how to get an "in the wood" finish out of it.
Thanks for keeping at it.
just thought of something: shellac doesn't like alkali, so ammonia will remove it. You could try that where there is some remaining in the pores of the wood--be careful though because ammonia may affect the wood (may "bleach" it).
IF the stock was originally finished with shellac it is easily removed with denatured alcohol. With regard to there being some left in the gouges and the crannies you just have to be complete in flooding the areas with alcohol and taking a tool such as a wooden skewer wrapped with a rag and getting the residue out.There are gunstock finishes. Why not use that.Gretchen
You are right of course. A glossy military rifle wouldn't be right. I thought it was a civilian gun.
I do think you will like shellac though eventually- wonderful stuff.
Frank
Getting a uniform color with any type of colored surface coating is very difficult unless you spray. Dye likely will not be a great choice given the sort of wood and the remaining finish in the grain. Oil is not good on top of some other coating since there's no way it can soak in.
Woodfinishingsupplies sells the line of Konig products. They sell both toners and lacquer in a half dozen different gloss levels in aerosol cans. I'd spray a couple coats of high-build base and sand to smooth everything, spray another coat of base, then spray a toner, then a couple coats of "silk" nitro lacquer. No investment in spray equipment necessary and it will give a very nice quality finish. Easy to strip with acetone if you mess up. Not unreasonably expensive. If you do tinted shellac, you likewise need to spray it. They also sell tinted shellac in spray cans. I mix my own and use an air brush. Not hard at all. Brushing it is a different story. I think shellac would be too chippy as a top coat for this job. Lacquer does fine on top.
Michael
Why change the colour?....would'nt that detract from its value/historical significance. Why not a hand rubbed linseed finish. To my mind it always looks and feels great and is very easily repaired after use...grit and dust as surely as sand paper would abrade a finish like shellac...all the best Iain
If its military, not civilian, what's the big deal? No shellac. No varnish. No dye. Don't sand it smooth. Once its stripped, carefully use a wire brush but don't trash the stamps. The stain is asphaltum. Roofing tar in mineral spirits. Watco walnut is about the same stuff but it has some dye in it. A little linseed oil on top. Then a light coat of vaseline. Military stocks were soaked in cosmoline. They never quite get it all off when they're cleaned for service. They're not pretty stocks. If you want it to look original, its just dark and rough. The civilian models are as pretty as any, but the military are very plain. I've only got about 30 of them and maybe restored a hundred more. Nothing to agonize about. If you put enough oil on it to look semi-gloss, it will look like it was refinished and kill the value.
The big deal in this case is that it is not some WWII Garand made in the millions but a rare WWI German rifle of which less than a thousand were made. Prewar European military weapons had finer fit and finishes than any modern Winchester sporting rifle.
As for color, again, prewar European and even much post war stuff had very light, almost yellow stocks because they were stocked with English Walnut which is not brown like Eastern Black walnut. I have also seen many prewar rifles which were stocked with what we would probably call veneer grade Turkish Walnut which a similar uncut stock blank today would run well over $500.
For anyone interested in military stockmaking as practiced by the US, there is a fantastic book called, The M1 Carbine, a Revolution in Gunstocking. Even if your just interested in wood or history it is a very good read.
As for using a heavy stain like you are suggesting, while it might work well for American military stocks made of walnut, this is made of Elm or something similar and the pores are very large and I think it would end up ruining the stock.
I have some experience in making stocks, here are some items I have made in the past.
http://www.mgstocks.com/lewis.jpg
http://mgstocks.com/images/Sterling.jpg
http://www.mgstocks.com/images/mg34set.jpg
Your work looks fine. But, I have an 1891 German Mauser with serial below 1000 right in front of me. Nearly unissued condition, all stamps razor sharp. Flawless metalwork. 99%+ blue. The wood is probably very nice. Could be the equal of a high-end civilian piece IF it were finished that way. It isn't. If I cut into it, the wood is certainly lighter than a walnut in color. It has a very even and quite dark patina. That's the way I see them most often.
The workmanship is nice. I could strip it and make it a showpiece and cut a thousand or so off the value. Thats not they way they were made. It was made for utilitarian purposes. They were finished in a barrel. Dipped in a mix of oil, a stain or dye and possibly a touch of varnish. Over the years, its been in and out of cosmoline a couple times.
Never yet seen an unissued Mauser military piece with a trace of shellac on it. They did not have fancy aniline dyes back then. I don't use them. Walnut extract, natural pigments, logwood, acid treatments , asphaltum and maybe a couple other things were all they had. Its not a pigment stain. Comes off too easily. Its a penetrating stain. You don't just rub tar on it. A percent or two of tar in mineral spirits gives a semi-transparent yellow/brown stain. If I absolutely have to refinish something, it comes out looking like it came off the rack at the arsenal. The metal was pretty. The wood was not.
Considering that it's a Mauser, and that Mauser is a German firm, the stock may be either birch or beech if it's not walnut. Elm isn't generally used as a production wood, it's not that common and the interlocking grain is a dog to work with.
I'm curious as to why you think this is a rare Mauser. The '98 Mauser was used in two World Wars and Mausers have been sold world wide to various nations as a primary infantry weapon (Chile, Argentina and Turkey amongst others).
BTW, the revered M1903 Springfield rifle has a Mauser action. IIRC we paid Mauser $100k for use of their action.
Leon Jester, Roanoke VA
Because the Germans had cut down their forests and hardwoods were scarce, they stocked the early prewar Mausers with American Black Walnut, we actually got some uncut logs BACK after WWI as war reparations. Both Mauser, Ludwig & Lowe, and DWM stocked their guns with American Walnut. After WWI they did start to use other woods and often did not stain them dark. The MP18i stocks were nearly yellow.
As for this Mauser, it isn't a 98 action, it is a 1918 Anti-Tank gun in 13.7mm from which we developed our .50 cal round.
As for the Springfield, we paid royalties on the stripper clip, not the gun.
On 05 Sep 2004 Michael wrote:
Because the Germans had cut down their forests and hardwoods were scarce, they stocked the early prewar Mausers with American Black Walnut, we actually got some uncut logs BACK after WWI as war reparations. Both Mauser, Ludwig & Lowe, and DWM stocked their guns with American Walnut. After WWI they did start to use other woods and often did not stain them dark. The MP18i stocks were nearly yellow.
As for this Mauser, it isn't a 98 action, it is a 1918 Anti-Tank gun in 13.7mm from which we developed our .50 cal round.
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Ah. Makes sense, then.
I'd wondered if Mauser was importing walnut from the U.S. and Canada. You've answered that also.
Thanks, good luck.
Leon Jester, Roanoke VA
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