wartime Russian wood finish

[Claven2]

Same as Tula. Some sort of Lacquer.

This recently came up over on gunboards and the author of the recent book on wartime Mosins confirmed from russian documents that the original finish was mordant applied to the wood so that pigment would stick to the birch (notorious for not staining well), then some type of reddish stain, and finally 3 coats of nitro-cellulose lacquer. There was a short period during the height of the war where other finishes were tried and used, such as some type of tree-based tar, which did not perform well, and for a while an oil finished was briefly used. Then they went back to lacquer. The tinted shellac stuff is post-war.

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[mdarnell19]

This recently came up over on gunboards and the author of the recent book on wartime Mosins confirmed from russian documents that the original finish was mordant applied to the wood so that pigment would stick to the birch (notorious for not staining well), then some type of reddish stain, and finally 3 coats of nitro-cellulose lacquer. There was a short period during the height of the war where other finishes were tried and used, such as some type of tree-based tar, which did not perform well, and for a while an oil finished was briefly used. Then they went back to lacquer. The tinted shellac stuff is post-war.

Yes! Alex, myself and RyanE have been discussing this for years and have been trying to tell people. Now we have the proof. Thanks for sharing the info here.