before and after a shellac spit coat. oil will be lighter.

I hope you aren't actually using shellac as a stock finish. If you do. never take it out into the rain.

No.

Good; I shudder when I hear about the old school methods of shellac, turpentine and linseed oil. We have come a long way since then in terms of wood finishes.

Actually, definitive tests were done some years back that demonstrated shellac was about 95% resistant to moisture. The first few ten thou of the surface will whiten but will largely prevent moisture penetration. It was second only to Spar Varnish in the test which is largely phenolic resin. Modern polyurethane is no angel. I finished a laminate stock with 5 coats of BC Tru-oil. There was a roof leak in the store room during a rain storm and some water puddled on the concrete floor. The stock was stored off the floor on a shelf. When I found it, the wood had swelled and the finish cloudy and checked.

Nice blank...

To darken light walnut wood I boil linseed with Lead oxide. I get the lead oxide from the scum that forms on the melting pot. About a quarter size chunk in a quart jar, boiled in a coffee can outside for however long,not a hard boil as it won't boil hard, just a slow steady boil...Let cool and paint the wood, hang it up for several weeks and repeat as many times as needed to get the dark color you want.

I like the light walnut, like Sako uses/used.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
To darken light walnut wood I boil linseed with Lead oxide. I get the lead oxide from the scum that forms on the melting pot. About a quarter size chunk in a quart jar, boiled in a coffee can outside for however long,not a hard boil as it won't boil hard, just a slow steady boil...Let cool and paint the wood, hang it up for several weeks and repeat as many times as needed to get the dark color you want.

Just what everybody wants when they shoulder a stock, a face full of linseed oil laced with lead oxide.

Craigster,
That's a pretty silly statement when you apparently have never tried it..Its been used for centurys on English rifles...after it sits and cures you sand it back to the wood and fill and finish. It will lighten up some but still gives a beautiful finish..The Englished used a combination of Shellack and Varnish over it..I use modified Urathane..Gun Sav-R works real well.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Craigster,
That's a pretty silly statement when you apparently have never tried it..Its been used for centurys on English rifles...after it sits and cures you sand it back to the wood and fill and finish. It will lighten up some but still gives a beautiful finish..The Englished used a combination of Shellack and Varnish over it..I use modified Urathane..Gun Sav-R works real well.

I'm not talking about how the finish looks or works. I just don't like the idea of the lead oxide in the mix.

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Craigster,
That's a pretty silly statement when you apparently have never tried it..Its been used for centurys on English rifles...after it sits and cures you sand it back to the wood and fill and finish. It will lighten up some but still gives a beautiful finish..The Englished used a combination of Shellack and Varnish over it..I use modified Urathane..Gun Sav-R works real well.

I'm not talking about how the finish looks or works. I just don't like the idea of the lead oxide in the mix.

Oh Please! Do you use rubber gloves while you reload or put on fishing weights?

Snellstrom,

No, I shoot silver bullets and use bismuth split shot. Did you ever find a stock (or pattern) similar to the one I have that you asked about?

craigster,
Silver bullets are great for Werewolves I hear? Bismouth isn't great for anything, only in California!~

I made it to 80 with lead in my meat, my guns, and even my toys early on. shot lead indoors for many years with pistol soooo not sure I buy into that bunny hugging BS, and have been told many times whatever we wear, breath, eat, or look at will surely kill us, We have gone overboars with this sort of thing, but your probably better off safe than sorry so don't use lead oxide to color your wood. but I would bet dollars to donuts somethings going to kill you, probably that California polluted air!

Ray, you are probably right, but the air won't get me. The part of CA that I live in has clean air, very clean air.

Who knows? 45 years ago the military told me and a couple million other guys that Agent Orange was pretty much harmless, all it did was remove leaves.

Metallic lead is reasonably inert and isn't going to be particularly harmful. Lead oxide, however, is toxic. It's the stuff that gets absorbed and causes damage to the central nervous system in children. I don't worry about metallic lead but I try to stay away from lead oxide.

Lead oxide is even harder for your body to absorb than metallic lead. What gives you lead poisoning is lead acetate - from combining lead with vinegar which got the Romans, lead nitrate from over-fertilizing fields that naturally have some lead content and from tetra-ethyl lead which was in the gasoline for so many decades. Every other common lead chemical compound simply won't go into solution at dangerous levels in either water or natural oils that you would eat.

It really has reached ridiculous levels, our steel reloading dies now have warning labels that they contain chemicals which California finds to be dangerous. I've also seen these labels on hammers - hammers!. Solid steel dies and steel hammers with wooden handles - with our current capability to sample nearly anything to a single part per billion the environmental regulations have gone completely nuts.