I just bought a puma 92 357 lever action. I disassembled it, polished all contact surfaces, polished the sear, shimmed the trigger spring and reblued the parts.

This has some decent wood with tiger-eye running around the entire forearm. It shows a bit right now, but i was wondering if there is a particular method to bring this 3D shimmer out a lot more.

I like the current shade of brown. would just sanding the surface and applying tru-oil or tung-oil bring it out more or should i strip it and use a more specialized method to bring it out?

Also, can you iron out light dings without stripping?

When ironing out dings, the steam needs to penetrate into the wood fibers. Depending on the finish, it may or may not get into the wood.

As far as the tiger/eye fiddleback goes, I've found on walnut (and other woods) that it seems to pop better when no or very little stain is applied. The finish/top coat seems to do it.

On curly maple the stripes are brought out with acid stain "magic Maple"stain; you apply it and then hit it with heat and it reacts; the stripes react more and turn darker. I do not use it any more as it must be neutralized or it will rust the metal. Just sanding and applying tru oil won't do much. I use Laurel Mountain stains of various colors, which also bring out stripes. I have raised dents with irons and damp cloths too; it might damage your finish depending on what it is.

I prefer hard maple which has many different grain structures .I've never seen the fine lines like the one on top .Is that big leaf maple which is a soft maple . The lower photos also seem to me to be big leaf.
Nice , interesting !

On long rifles (flint) we almost always use hard maple; sugar or red are both hard maples, and they are always stained; never left natural. I think you would like it better if it was stained. I know I do.

I'm not going to lie toasted major is nice. Call me odd.

Adam

While at Fajen, Inc. I witnessed the Fajen solution to that question. After the stock was profiled, inletted, shaped, and sanded to 220...a water based stain was applied. The stain was heavily colored to the orange or brown color (customer choice). The final sanding to 320 was done and then finished with either oil or poly(again customer's choice).

Tung oil. was on a swed mauser. bubinga T&C



clear shellac

Thanks guys. I'm getting an idea of what I want to do. does rubbing mineral spirits on the surface imitate what it would look like, color wise, when the oil finish is applied.

If so I could strip it, apply mineral spirits and if its too light, i could do a light stain and put mineral spirits on to see what it looks like before I decide to finish it.

Another fellow did the following;
wetsanded with 50/50 tru-oil thinned and left the sludge to fill in the grain. then did the same thing wiping the excess off the 2nd time.

Then hand rubbed 25/75 mix, then 50/50 mix, then 75/25 mix for the rest of the coats.
BEFORE

AFTER

Pictures from: http://www.nagelhome.com/gunstock1/

Now my stock doesn't have nearly the character as his but what it does have is that under lying tiger eye shimmer and I think his method really brought that out. with a stock like his i might have just left it dull as it has so much character without the gloss (just with the woodgrain)

Chatoyance is the proper term for bringing out the grain making it almost 3 dimentional !

I thought that was Big Leaf Maple And to think it was once used only for firewood !

First off that is a great job. Is that an AL390? I have the same.


A gloss finish is always going to show more detail than a satin finish.

Sugar Maple is hard maple. It has the finer stripes and is much less abundant in figured form. It is also much heavier than soft maple.

Red Maple is soft maple. It is lighter in weight and very abundant in a wide variety of figure patterns. Most muzzle loaders around here are made with soft maple.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
On long rifles (flint) we almost always use hard maple; sugar or red are both hard maples, and they are always stained; never left natural. I think you would like it better if it was stained. I know I do.

Well, I picked up some supplies:
low gloss tung oil
mineral spirits
1000 grit wet/dry sand paper
0000 steel wool
Cheese cloth, and tack cloth.

I guess the wood on these pumas are Brazilian hardwood, so somewhat similar to walnut.
I'll have to take some before and after pics. I'm waiting on a steel magazine follower to come so it's a good time to start this.

Thanks mete for telling me what that feature is called so I don't have to try and describe it.

If memory serves me correctly , nitric acid did a wonderful job of contrasting the stripes in the wood.I doubt very much if one can stop by a pharmacy anymore and purchase it over the counter.

quote:

Originally posted by chas257:
If memory serves me correctly , nitric acid did a wonderful job of contrasting the stripes in the wood.I doubt very much if one can stop by a pharmacy anymore and purchase it over the counter.

If a person wants to go the "acid route" :

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/...spx/392/1/AQUAFORT-2

I've used it and it does work as described.

Don't forget a sanding block, in my limited experience I think using them is important for getting the most out of the figure (and keeping edges crisp). You want the surface of the stock deadnuts flat- no waves or ripples.

Some very nice wood has been posted in this thread, I'll throw in some Oregon claro walnut for contrast.





Got chatoyance? I took the photo while filling the pores with spar urethane- no color added. The afternoon light really lit it up.

Excellent starburst fiddleback. Wow! CB

Well, It looks better than it did. I forgot to take before pictures so here is about what it looked like


Here is the after:









I took a lot of pics hoping to try and capture some of the way the wood changes it's look from different angles. I'm happy with the results and I'm still trying to decide if I should leave it or knock some of the gloss off. it doesn't look plastic, but still does look wet

quote:

Originally posted by richj:

A gloss finish is always going to show more detail than a satin finish.

Gloss finishes do bring out more of the "curly" figure such as fiddleback, quilting (maple) and crotch feather, but I feel that color contrast figure, as in good English walnut, suffers little from a properly applied matte finish. Just my opinion.