My Buttstock Quandry

[Morning Wood]

I have a Savage 4/1* that I am restoring to original condition. I have all the original Savage parts and I am cleaning up the wood. My question is about the buttstock. I finally found a Savage Butt. It has not been sanded, but all the finish is off of it and it's "in the white" so to speak. I mean it's totally without any finish. I know linseed oil is the coating used on the wood, but I coated it, and guess what, it's still white. The rest of the wood is dark. I am freshening it up too, but the white stock looks odd with the rest of the wood.

My question is, what is the proper thing to do to help the butt match up to the rest of the wood.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Bindi2]

More BLO and time

[Patrick Chadwick]

Leave it on a windowsill. Turn over occasionally. Light acts on the lignin (??) in wood to darken it. It takes months rather than weeks.


Patrick

[Surpmil]

Stain it.

[Peter Laidler]

I'd do what an Armourer would do.......... Stain it. But stain doesn't like linseed oil so I'd try to get rid of some of the oil first

[Morning Wood]

Any particularly common stain color/brand that is used for this purpose?

[purple]

A lot of military stocks retain residual oils which makes either a water or oil based stain a poor choice. Leather stains are alcohol based and will penetrate better. Fiebings is a good brand. They make a light, medium and dark brown color. All of these tend to produce a degree of reddish/russet leather color. A lot of the Savage wood had a reddish hue to it, so this may work well.

[Buccaneer]

Any particularly common stain color/brand that is used for this purpose?

Whatever stain you may end up useing make sure you "test" it for colour first. Wood takes stain in different ways, the fact that you have already oiled it could affect the finish especially as the oil may have sunk further into the grain in some parts more than others. Stain is not like paint as it will not necessarily give you a uniform depth of colour, if you are not carefull you could end up with blotchy mess instead of a nice uniform finish. I suggest that you try the stain on a clean piece of similar timber and also on a piece that has been oiled to try and give you some idea of the finish. Good luck

[Peter Laidler]

IN our big workshops we had a big vat of dark stain and if the woodwork wasn't as reasonable match when it came into the workshop, it was when it left the staining tank. But the above forumers are right in that even then, after an overnight dunking, some wood remained patchy but we still used it. I seem to remember that at Ngaruawahia Base Workshop in New Zealand the stain was based on........... Oh, forget the name now, but it makes water go purple but very effective on wood

[Thunderbox]

IN our big workshops we had a big vat of dark stain and if the woodwork wasn't as reasonable match when it came into the workshop, it was when it left the staining tank. But the above forumers are right in that even then, after an overnight dunking, some wood remained patchy but we still used it. I seem to remember that at Ngaruawahia Base Workshop in New Zealand the stain was based on........... Oh, forget the name now, but it makes water go purple but very effective on wood

Potassium permanganate solution gives that dusky brown colour to beech.

Here is a whole page of DIY stainers:

Wood Finishing Enterprises - Chemicals, Dyes & Mordants