I have a customer who wants a custom Uzi stock in a black wood. He mentioned ebony but I was curious what other options are out there as I know ebony is pretty expensive.
The wood has to be somewhat hard (equal to walnut), pretty stable, and will take a good finish.
I may end up doing it out of something else and simply dying it but I want to know what my options are first.
Thanks in advance,
Michael
Replies
Only the expensive ones.
John W.
Michael
I narrow it down to three choices...
(1) Ebony
(2) If you have any scrap walnut, teak, mahogany or beech shorts, stain them with ebony to see how even the wood accepts the ebony stain.
(3) Walnut that is painted with Commando Black Porch and Floor paint...
I think I would use ebony! ha.. ha...
Regards...
sarge..jt
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Thanks for the info.
What they guy wants is a "black" stock that will age gracefully. Paint will look shabby after a few nicks and dings. A shallow stain would do the same thing.
I guess I could take walnut and just soak it in analine dye for a 1/4 hour or so, that should penetrate pretty good. Then finish it with a dark coat of Watco and that might do the trick.
How does that sound?
Michael, I think using walnut and giving it a dye bath is your best option. As already mentioned, there are a number of black, or nearly black woods, but none of them are cheap. Perhaps more importantly though, walnut is functionally the best species in the world for gunstocks. It's strength-to-weight ratio, its stability, its decay resistance, its machineability and its shock absorption characteristics are unsurpassed in this application.
Edited 3/27/2004 6:56 pm ET by Jon Arno
Michael
I was just kiddin' about the paint. I usually try to close with a barb just for a chuckle. ha.. ha...
The soaking in dye sounds good, even though I would still take a test piece of walnut scrap and do a dry run to be sure. I always test as my weak point is finishing. I have learned more at this forum in 2 years about finishing than I knew in the previous 31.
I'm not to sure about the dark Watco. I have never used anything but the natural which has an amber tint. If it is a high grade or collector rifle that will not see any real field use, I believe I would go with a harder finish than Watco. I'm not sure I would trust the Watco in this case to block moisture. As it is for a client, I would not want a come-back due to poor planning and I out-smarted myself.
Most high grade show rifles usually have a gloss finish. I believe I would do a sample in both gloss and satin and let the client make the decision. If you make the wrong choice, you have to make amens. If he chooses and doesn't like it down the road, the responsibility falls in his lap.
You could change it either way, but if he chose the original finish sheen, he pays as his mistake.
Regards...
sarge..jt
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Michael
potassium permanganate (condies crystals) will stain most timbers a very very dark brown, indistinguishable from black. Some timbers even go to a true black. You could steam it in.
Ian
African Blackwood is fabulous. You don't even have to finish it, just sand and polish. Not completely black, it has a dark brown mottled figure on black background. I would show the customer a sample before investing a lot of money and effort. And it is expensive.
Wenge is very dark, next thing to black after finishing. It has a very coarse grain, would require filling to get the usual smooth gunstock finish. I filled some with sanding dust and epoxy one time, for a look I thought was attractive.
Macassar ebony has black and brown stripes. I think it's very attractive. Takes a fine polish. Again, you'd want the customer to approve it first.
I have no idea how stable any of these woods are in changing humidity, but this doesn't sound like a hunting arm anyway.
I second the African Blackwood - it is the finest wood I have ever used - hands down. As mentioned - it is not totally black - it has purple streaks in it, but it will turn a very warm black in no time. Ebony tends to be much "colder" looking - it depends what look you want. the Blackwood will be more stable than the ebony and a little less prone to chipping. Pass along your addess and I will mail you a sample of each to show your client.
Cheers, Konrad
Konrad,
Thank you very much for the VERY generous offer. However, as is often the case in giving quotes, I sent some information off but haven't heard back...
It does sound like very nice wood however.
Michael
Hi Michael,
At some point you may need them as samples - keep them for yourself if you want. I am quite happy to do it.
Cheers, Konrad
Walnut itself ebonizes beautifully with iron tannate; fancy name for rusty steel wool dissolved in vinegar for a few days. You have to wet the surface fairly fairly well, and this will raise the grain just like water would, but if you do a round with water first, it is not too bad. Any polymerizing oil will seal in the color and keep it from coming off on anything, and this method goes deeper than most dyes, so you would have no problems wet sanding with oil for grain filling.
Probably your cheapest/easiest option; if you do this professionally, the odds are good that you already have a blank section of plain-ish stuff laying around without trying to fish for an exotic, and it is more stable than most of the easily-ebonized alternatives.
<br>
/jvs
I had been scared to start this project as I didn't wan't to ruin it. I made up a solution of the iron tannate and boy did it dye the walnut black. Really looks great, I am going to try and get some pictures but pictures of black seldom come out well.
Anyway, thanks for the tip!
Michael Bush
Stockmaker
Cool--glad it worked out!
/jvs
Please...more feedback on the iron acetate experiment! I made a comment in another thread about trying this with oak, so I'm interested in your results on the walnut. Did you wet the piece to raise the grain before using the vinegar/iron mixture? How much grain raising did you experience after the mixture was applied? How deep into the wood was the effect of the color change? When you sanded the piece, did it appear to remove any of the color or cut beyond the penetration of the chemical reaction?
Red vinegar, white vinegar, or it doesn't matter?
Thanks for the feedback and I hope your client is pleased with the outcome!
tony b.
Tony,
I used white vinegar and dumped a bunch of steel wool into a jar and lets it sit for a couple of weeks athought I bet It would have worked after a week. I then filtered it through a paper towel.
I sanded to 220 and then just wiped it on with a paper towel. Didn't raise the grain much at all. It didn't get down into the pores of some of the edge grain but the flat sides looked perfect. I suppose if I had immersed it or added a tiny bit of soap to act as a surfectant it might have penetrated the pores better.
The color was a very deep black, not blue or purple. I only wiped it on two or three times so I would imagine if you dipped something in it for a bit or perhaps applied it a few more times it would get the few pores I missed.
I rubbed it to a gloss with steel wool and I didn't rub through so it is fairly deep. I would play with it on scrap first but it is an interesting method and cheap.
I am going to try it on some English Walnut which has much finer pores that Claro as I really think it will be a dead ringer for ebony.
Michael
Here is the result, it really has a wonderful sheen and I think I am going to play with this finish some more. Perhaps next time I will only sand to 180 so that it penetrates better?
http://www.mgstocks.com/images/uziblack.jpg
I've been looking for ebony substitutes as well. I've been needing some blackish accent pieces to put into segmented turnings. These usually would be 3/64" veneers laminated to make a sandwich--viewed on edge they would appear as inlays. I've been using wenge, but I've also been playing with coloring cheaper woods. The mordant on ebony works well, but only on the surface. I've found that walnut does not allow the mordant or dyes to penetrate beyond the surface, even after soaking in the mordant, or NGR for two days. Soaking soft maple veneers in black NGR allowed the dye to penetrate through, so when turned on the lathe they were black all the way through.
One thing that is of interest is that woods high in tannin will turn quickly and strongly, while other woods are less affected. Using a dilute mordant accentuates the difference, so wiping a cherry piece with walnut inlays with dilute mordant will turn the walnut black, but not affect the cherry as much--slight greying. I'm still experimenting with this.
You can use any wood you want. Saturate it with straight india ink. Best black dye out there. Let it dry good before you try to lacquer or finish over it. Bonus - it's cheap. Art supply store.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
A sufficiently large chunk of ebony or blackwood will not be uniformly black anyway. Unless you spend a real fortune. It almost always needs to be dyed anyway to fix streaks. Plus its twice as heavy as anything else and that could be a problem.
Ebonize some other wood. Maple or birch is good if you don't want to see grain. Walnut or oak if you do. Mahogany is also great since its so stable and easy to work. Could also lay up your own fiberglass. Balsa core. 2 or 3 layers of glass cloth with black dyed resin.
Michael,
I'd combine a few of the suggestions made by other posters:
1. Use walnut
2. Apply a mordant of acetic acid and iron oxide (vinegar and rusty metal)
3. Complete the coloring process with a liberal application of india ink
Good luck,
-Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
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