Finally got the stock on a pretty little Swede sanded enought today to apply a coat of tung oil.

To my partial surprise, it came out pretty light. I was expecting a darker color like American or Claro.

I think French walnut can be light, am I right?

-Spencer

Juglans Regia is called among other things: French Walnut, English Walnut, European Walnut, Circassian Walnut etc. etc.. If it's light colored people tend to call it "French Walnut" whether or not it's ever crossed the Frog coast or not................DJ

This is what I thought.

It's weird how they are all the same tree, but when you go from French to English to Circassian, they can all look so different.
Well, maybe not from French to English, but at least Circassian looks different to me.

-Spencer

Spencer,
it's the rare piece of "affordable" english that will be as dark as a "cheap" piece of black/claro...

In fact, I've got a piece of english that I like the grain pattern and "stuff".... but it's like light toast. I am working on a tincture of crush ed green walnuts (husks and nuts).. we'll see how it goes in a month
jeffe

Sometimes I guess you just don't know what you're going to get.

I like it when you find a nice piece of wood on a military rifle. Its like opening a box of chocolate nuts and thinking after you eat like 12 that you are done, but then to your surprise there is a whole other layer and you get 12 more!

Delicious!

-Spencer

I recently tried a a batch of Southerland Wells tung oil sealer, that I mixed with some Alkanet root powder, and it did a relly nice job of adding color and darkness to a light piece of wood prior to applying the first coats of Tung oil spar varnish. I then mixed some of that colored sealer in with the wetting agent for the rest of the sanding and it worked pretty well.

Mixing the darkening/coloring agent into the tung oil sealer seemed to get it nice and deep into the wood.

swiss K31s can heve deceptively light walnut.

I have used plain old Minwax Tung Oil for the last 2 or 3 stocks, in fact just bought a new can yeasterday to do this Swede stock because the last one turned to jelly on me.

It works pretty darn good to bring out some of the hidden depth in wood.

delloro-
I guess whatever walnut trees they have in Sweden produce some pretty light wood.

-Spencer

quote:

Originally posted by ShopCartRacing:
I have used plain old Minwax Tung Oil for the last 2 or 3 stocks, in fact just bought a new can yeasterday to do this Swede stock because the last one turned to jelly on me.

It works pretty darn good to bring out some of the hidden depth in wood.

delloro-
I guess whatever walnut trees they have in Sweden produce some pretty light wood.

-Spencer

Spencer,

Go to your local Big 5 sports or Sports Chalet and get some of the quart size plastic bottles (the softer ones). Put your tung oil in them and squeeze the air out before you close it up each time. I learned that little trick after having the same experience you did, with it turning to a solid glob. Tung oil reacts to the air really quick and starts drying, and that’s one of the good things about it for finishing stocks, just a pain in the ass to store it sometimes.

quote:

Originally posted by ShopCartRacing:
I guess whatever walnut trees they have in Sweden produce some pretty light wood.

If it is a swedish military stock, it doesn't have to be walnut: it could also be oak, wych-elm, ash, birch, beech or maple, as walnut doesn't grow in Sweden and must be imported from abroad. My guess is wych-elm, which can resemble walnut pretty well.

Fritz

I've also stored the bottle upside down. The film then forms on the bottom.

Wych-elm? I have never heard of such a wood.
If you have any info on it, please put it here.

As for a side note:
The last can of tung oil came with a screw off metal lid. My guess is the threads got smashed etc over a little time and eventually did not seal well.

This new can I got has the pop off plastic lids like they do on the smaller cans of paint/lacquer thinner.

Maybe this method will work better for sealing.

-Spencer