I've heard of using thinned epoxy or Accraglass as a finnish for a stock or to seal checkering. My question is how do you thin it and what do you use? I'm going to paint or duracoat a stock I'm making and thought this might help to seal it and create a "shell" in the woods surface before the finnish goes on.

Thanks

Brownell's has a thinner for their Acraglass products. I have used acetone for the same purpose.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/productdetail.aspx?p=1127

I doubt epoxy will add anything that thinned duracoat would not.

What did your search of this forum turn up? This has been brought up several times.

I never could get the thinner to work as I liked. Could have been my application/mixing or something.

Do you have th eoriginal Gunsmith Kinks put out by Brownell's? THey have a good article on how to finish a stock wiht acraglas. I wrote an article over 10 years ago and it is here:

stock finishing with acraglas

I do things differently now, but it gives you an idea.

I have some West Systems epoxy to try on th enext stock I finish. Again, do a search for which type and how folks apply it.

There is no way to totally seal the wood. Even a built up coat of epoxy will allow some water to migrate in and out of the stock. It will slow it down a lot, but water can still move in and out. The closer you get the finish to looking like the heavy, built up, shiny Remington RKW finish, the better the epoxy will seal the wood.

The epoxy will make the stock tougher and more resistant to dents and scratches.

Interesting thought to use epoxy.

How does it react to checkering(sp) and do you then re-seal with epoxy?

Hold it fellas ; There are Trains Planes and Automobiles !. Do you use a train to drive the kids too the market or movies ?. Take the family in the automobile on the train track route ?.

Epoxies are adhesives for the most part , for lamination or casting type applications .

Unless your talking about a specific two component ratio coating , that is formulated for the purpose of applying a finished coat .
Such as epoxy paint or clear or urethane products .

Please don't try and use something like West System Adhesive epoxy for clear coating !.

If your looking to seal wood , use an Epoxy sealer or Urethane like a Floor finish urethane solvent based is best .

Polyester Resin may be thinned with 10% of Styrene Monomer .

Laminating epoxy does awful nasty things when thinned , it also loses it's desired properties !.

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

Save yourself the hassle of thinning the epoxy - here it is already thinned:

Acracoat finish

There are two part epoxy paints that are fluid, and they have it in clear coat available. I use it.

Don

Stocks finished with epoxy are better for checkering. Any finish just barely penetrates the wood, so it is mostly seen in laying out the pattern. But that is the most critical part of the checkering job. I prefer to layout a pattern on an aepoxy finished stock than on an oil finsihed stock.

Never have seen that Acra-coat before, but I do not like any finish in a spray can. If you follow the instructions I wrote 10 years ago, you get a good result and have a lot more control over the process.

The West System epoxy I mentioned earlier is very thin and runny. It is as thin as anything can get. The type i got was designed for penetrating rotten wood on boats. It was desigend to penetrate deeply and harden the wood. From what little bit I have messed with it I think it should work as designed.

But then what the hell do I know, i am just a stock maker who has actually used these methods on stocks. Guess I forgot to read the text book that said it won't work.

In the bad old days I used Varathane Danish Rubbing oil mixed with either Satin or Gloss Varathane Plastic coating. You can't get any of those mixtures these days.

I started off roughly 50-50 mix or a little more of the Danish oil to get a consistency between milk and heavy cream. Slather it on until the wood quit soaking it up, then wipe off the excess and let it sit for a week. I sanded with 320 Wet/Dry lubed with the mix the first coat...slather on another coat and let sit about an hour...400 W/D sand...another coat etc... By the 3 coat the woodgrain was completely filled...600 W/D sanding would leave a dull shine...the last coat was straight Varathane and 1/2" camel hair artists brush.

The coating would darken the wood but let the pattern show through. It was hard as HE!!! but the wood was still the deciding factor on how hard it actually was.

I think now days there are much better products on the market and more environmentally friendly and with more synthetic stocks being used, regular old Imron or the epoxy based automotive paint works wonders...even on wood.

Acrucoat works great for a base coat on wood as it seals well but you have to be ready to hit it with your recoat to get the best adhesion.

Krylon Fusion works fairly well on the cheaper plastic type stocks found on several rifle brands and Krylon Webbing does a good job of adding texture and eye appeal.

'Njoy

I went out to the shop to see what the West numbers are. I bought #105 resin and #207 hardener.

Foo-

Do you do anything for prep on synthetic stocks before spraying them with Krylon Fusion? I have been wondering if that paint would work on synthetic stock.

Have you ever tried th espray grit from Brownell's? I used it on a couple of stocks. It worked OK but I was wondering if the Webbing paint was better.

Thansk!

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
If you follow the instructions I wrote 10 years ago, you get a good result and have a lot more control over the process.

The West System epoxy I mentioned earlier is very thin and runny. It is as thin as anything can get. The type i got was designed for penetrating rotten wood on boats. It was desigend to penetrate deeply and harden the wood. From what little bit I have messed with it I think it should work as designed.

But then what the hell do I know, i am just a stock maker who has actually used these methods on stocks. Guess I forgot to read the text book that said it won't work.

I've been using your Acraglas technique since I first saw it on the Internet many years ago. In my opinion it does exactly what you promoted.

If you find another product that accomplishes the same thing.........perhaps better or easier.....please pass it on.

GV

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
I went out to the shop to see what the West numbers are. I bought #105 resin and #207 hardener.

Foo-

Do you do anything for prep on synthetic stocks before spraying them with Krylon Fusion? I have been wondering if that paint would work on synthetic stock.

Have you ever tried th espray grit from Brownell's? I used it on a couple of stocks. It worked OK but I was wondering if the Webbing paint was better.

Thansk!

Another very thin epoxy product is Dev Prep 660 from Devoe. It has the specific gravity of water and flows/penetrates as well or better than water. It has an 8 hr pot life so it has a lot of time to soak into the wood. The only problem we had with it was that it darkens the wood as much as water, forever.

Some grain patterns like dark claro didn't respond well. But on a blonde wood, it is hell-for-stout.

Some of you may want to try these products as their specifically for HARD WOODS !. They penetrate nicely with minimal darkening , yet fortifying the wood fibers . Once fully cured allow any finish to be put over them .

http://www.duraseal.com/sections/products.htm

http://www.bona.com/en/US/Bona_products/Professional_Pr...oducts/Oil-Modified/

http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/index.html

Or product ESP 155
http://www.epoxyproducts.com/d_clear.html

For some unknown reason , my post didn't show solvent for epoxy thinning which is Xylene .

Todays urethanes for " Fixing Wood Fibers " quick drying no hassle no fuss no muss try Dura Seal !. For epoxy try Smith's Sealer .

James Town Distributors carries Smiths .
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/search_...goryId=203&page=GRID

West 105 is nothing more than a standard epoxy the 207 refers too the hardener # 209 is for Hot Humid environments and so forth .

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...