Hi all,

Have not posted in quite a while, and am wondering...
Why do we, well, some of us, sand a wood stock to satin perfection prior to finish and wet the thing to raise the grain, sand to perfection once more and proceed by filling the grain left void by raising said grain? Seems counter intuitive, eh? Why not just, after sanding to satisfaction, proceed with sealer and leave the whiskers as part of the filling process? Am about to embark this voyage again and curiosity raised it's occasional dubious head. What say you?

Thanks,

Stephen

I do it on some of my furniture I build as well.

I stole this.

:::While the phrase has undeniable alliterative and rhythmic appeal, it would make a lot more sense if we said, "making all the loose fibers stand up". (No wonder we call it "raising the grain" instead.) In any case, that's what it is: causing torn and partially severed wood fibers to contort themselves so they arise and stand clear of the surface around them. This makes it possible to cut them away, leaving a surface as clean and smooth as possible prior to finishing.

Sanding wood almost always tears up the surface and leaves lots of small, stringy fibers ripped from their moorings, but not completely detached. They're so small and weak they're hard to feel when dry. Wipe the surface with a moderately wet rag, and the moisture instantly soaks into the tiny fibers, warping them severely. Stroke your formerly smooth surface, and it now feels rough and hairy. Let the moisture dry, then sand very lightly with the finest grit you used previously, moving the sandpaper just a few degrees askew from the grain direction so you don't simply push the loose fibers back down into the grooves from which they were torn. Avoid partially severing a new crop of fibers; sand lightly and stop as soon as the hairy surface feels smooth again. It's a very old fine wood finishing technique, one that makes finished wood look cleaner and clearer, and which minimizes between-coats finishing hassles as well."""

Any thoughts on whether you accomplish the same by wet sanding the finish?

I've always sanded to 400 grit, and then raised the grain. After raising, I sand with 400 again, only I wet sand with sealer using the raised grain as my filler. Repeat one more time. The pores are usually mostly filled, and the grain won't raise again.

I have seen a couple stocks that developed rough patches on the cheekpiece and around the bottom metal. I assumed that they had not been properly whiskered prior to finishing, and sweat and humidity did it over time.

Jeremy

quote:

Any thoughts on whether you accomplish the same by wet sanding the finish?

To me wet sanding without first raising the grain makes the condition your are trying to cure by raising the grain worse.

Ramrod,

What condition is one attempting to cure by grain raising? Is it not minute slivers of wood which are from the grain one eliminates by the wetting-heating and re-sanding process? It seems we are removing wood slivers of the original and replacing those with filler of some sort. Not trying to be argumentative, just pragmatic, sort of.

Stephen

quote:

It seems we are removing wood slivers of the original and replacing those with filler of some sort.

The description I posted first if a better explanation than I can give you.

Yes when you wet the stock to raise the grain you are trying to remove those little wood slivers that your first round of sanding created.

Then yes you come back and then wet sand with a sealer or finish and fill all those voids that you have created with a much finer filler. Some simply fill it with finish and no sanding. Just takes longer I prefer the sanding filler.

If you are just doing an old linseed type finish might not make a difference. On stocks and furniture I find it far easier to get a glass smooth finish if I raise the grain.

If you are happy with the finish you get without raising the grain then for sure simply stay with it.

The main point of raising the grain is to make sure it doesn't happen later on. One humid or rainy day, and your perfect stock turns into a porcupine.

I've seen this happen. Finish isn't water proof and when water does penetrate, the crushed cells will swell up making rough spots all over your stock. At least on the hand rubbed, finish in the wood type of stock. Whiskering and sanding removes, as mush as possible, the damaged surface cells/fibers.

Jeremy

i like to get to the level of smooth i like
raise grain ONCE with alcohol
wet sand with finish, not water, and WIPE IT OFF

then finish with voodoo and panther piss, according to the directions on the tin

quote:

raise grain ONCE with alcohol

Is that "raising" the grain or simply "cleaning" it?

I was always taught that you get rid of the whiskers so that applying the finish doesn't do it !
How do I know ? Back in the dark ages I won the woodworking medal in elementary school !!!

Another method I have seen and read of is buffing the fresh sanded stock with a loose muslin wheel. Olson in "Mauser Bolt Rifles" cites German text on the finishing of military stocks. The wheel was used to polish the stock and remove stray wood fibers. I have used this technique with success to re-condition Mauser military stocks. After oiling with BLO it is difficult to tell the difference between old and new. It reproduces the nice polish you see on mint specimens. I have yet to experience raised grain after many outings in humid South Carolina.

Howdy Fellas,
I read a lot here, but don't chime in very often. I couldn't let this pass though without adding a little of what I know about the topic. I have been finishing gun stocks for just over 50 years now, and I would not even consider applying sealer or finish to a stock without fuzzing (aka raising the grain) it first. I even fuzz stocks that I am just refinishing, just to be sure. Given exposure to humidity under the right conditions, finished wood that has not been properly and thoroughly fuzzed can, and most generally will, exhibit raised grain, which to me is a sure sign of someone cutting corners and not doing the job as well as they could have.

I started out doing it in the same way as described here, sanding the wood until it was glass smooth, wetting, heating, sanding again, etc., etc. Now, I hate sanding, and certainly don't want to spend any more time doing it than is necessary. At some point I decided to try fuzzing the wood in between my normal sanding steps. Normally, I'd do my preliminary sanding, after rasping and filing to the desired contours, using 80x grit paper. Once all the rasp and file marks were gone, I'd switch to 120x grit paper. I'd wet down the entire stock, dry it in 2 minutes with an industrial heat gun (lots of raised grain!) and sand the wood with 180x grit paper. I'd wet it again, dry it (only some raised grain this time) and sand it with 240x grit paper. I'd soak it good a third time, dry it (only a few raised grains this time) and sand it smooth with 320x grit paper. Next came sealer or finish, wet-sanded-in with 400x grit w/d paper several times until the pores were filled. A final wet-sanding with 600x grit w/d paper and I was done.

A couple of other observations, wet-sanding an oil finish into the wood's surface won't raise the grain because there is no water in the finish. The grain raises because of being exposed to water, and not because it was made wet by an oil finish. Denatured or 92% alcohol won't raise the grain in a stock either. Some commercial non-grain-raising stains/dyes are alcohol based for that very reason. Cheap drugstore alcohol may raise wood grain, but that is because it contains a higher percentage of water than alcohol. My recommendation is to spend the time to do it right and don't skimp on materials! Take care!

I haven't "whiskered" a stock in years. Of course, I haven't used an "oil" finish in years either. Spar varnish, preceded by a coat of epoxy, or not, is my finish of choice. 8-12 coats, rubbed out with 320x between coats, and the final coat rubbed out with rottenstone or 0000 de-greased steel wool to cut the gloss, then waxed with a good paste wax to bring up a luster.

Varnishing about a million square feet of brightwork on boats taught me that whiskering first is a waste of time.

Those rare occasions when I oil finish walnut, I pore fill with either varnish or epoxy before oiling. (Apply, sand, apply, sand, repeat until pores filled- hey, if you want it done right there aren't any easy shortcuts.) Subsequent oiling doesn't "raise the grain", nor does getting wet.

Truth be told, I think a lot of guys over-think the whole business of whiskering.

Would you be using Teak Wood? Lot different than Walnut and I go along with Whiskering is a must do.

Whiskering will also raise any crushed fibers from the rasp...which if you don't do, can cause real embarassment to your ability to finish properly.

People have mentioned that getting a stock wet with oil or water wont raise the pressed down whiskers up. Well it does happen with gun stock woods and it's easy to prove. Just sand a bit of walnut perfectly smooth with #320, #400 and then #600 until you get a glass like finish. Then put some water on it and let it dry. The fibers will all jump out of the pores and stand up like a pissed off poky-pine. Oil will also raise it up too but not to the degree that water will. If you don't cut off those blown down saplings and you sand in a (no over cover) satin oil finish, the stumps will often start to stand up as the stock takes on moisture. ( I have seen that happen many times) I have never seen them pop up through a full coverage finish. But if it was a light coverage finish, I have no doubt they could. What no one seems to have brought up was what to whisker with. I was always taught to do it with 0000 steel wool. The idea being that the steel wool will lasso the saplings and cut them off at the base, or rip them out by the roots. Raising the grain and trying to remove them with light sanding just pushes the stumps back down again. Steel wool deals with the stumps. At least that's the theory.

I have done 3 or 4 stocks in my life and proud of the last 2 - both Mannlicher Schoenauers.

I used a steam iron to raise the grain and was surprised to see how furry it looked. After 2 or 3 steams and sanding the finish was distinctly smoother at 400 grit. Then I did 600 wet sand with oil and finally 1000 grit with oil.

I applied a total of over 20 coats of oil.

First rifle I used Truoil diluted 1:3 with mineral spirits.

The second oil was Boiled Linseed oil diluted with IPA & mineral spirits and added 20% Danish oil which has the waterproofing Carnauba wax that fill the pores and hardens. I added Alkanet root for the red colour.

I ended with a great dull shine like the traditional British shotguns & rifles.

I used coarse steel wool to remove the whiskers. It removes whiskers without creating more of them. Any subsequent "wet sanding" is done with turpentine to avoid raising the grain.

The turpentine makes a slurry that helps to fill the grain. I wait until the slurry dries & then wipe across the grain.

I never raise the grain and no, it won't raise up out of the finish. I wet sand with the finish.

I have heard of the steel wool option many times.

I never had luck with it. What I found was that the steel wool just crumbled and embedded into the wood, showing tiny silvery bits stuck to the wood. Yes lots of it - visible with magnifying glass and some with naked eye. It was a real pain removing it again with wet sanding 400 grit.

May be the quality of steel wool I used was poor.

Just be careful.

A good scrubbing with one of those hard, plastic bristle brushes used for scrubbing pots and pans removes all of the trapped steel wool in a couple of minutes. It also cleans out the pores, shines up the wood and makes it easier to see any heavier sanding marks you might have missed. After that I apply a sealing coat of whatever finish I plan to use. I slather it on over 20 minutes or so, good and heavy until it will soak in no more. I wipe off the excess with a cloth and let it harden for a couple of days. Then when I do my first fill I don't have to worry about the stock sucking all of the oil out of my filler paste and leaving me with a piece of wood covered with chalky brown gunk that just rubs off with light pressure.

I have always whiskered stocks when finishing. I will wet, dry, and re-sand until the dampened surface remains smooth. I was taught to do it this way fifty-five years ago and have seen no reason to change. Regards, Bill

Lots of very interesting and provocative thoughts on this subject...I always wondered about the "why's and wherefores".

My first stock was a Walnut Ruger M77 7 x 57...read all the books I could lay my hands on redoing gunstocks and furniture and talked to my father who was a real woodworker/furniture builder. He gave me several finishing mixtures which I tried on various places on that stock, but no matter how many times I "whiskered" a particular spot I kept getting whickers AFTER wetting again.

Probably not the same splinters, just new ones...and I tried several grits of wet and dry...so not much effort went into "whiskering" after that revelation.

Finally I tried a mixture of clear Varathane and a plasticized Tung oil...haven't see any of that original stuff in many years. Whatever was in the Varathane/Tung oil carrier raised the grain then locked it in and those whiskers got chopped off...no more whiskers...wish my beard was as easy to remove.

I slather on the first coat copiously and rubbed it in until it wouldn't absorb any more then let it sit for a week in a kitchen corner and rotated the stock 90° every day.


Kept rubbing in thin coats until there wasn't a glossy pore dimple to be found after lightly sanding with wet/dry.

The last very thin coat finished the job. The mixture left a golden glow that darkened the walnut slightly and was so hard you couldn't dent it with a thumbnail. I used the same mixture to seal the inside, under the butt plate and sling swivel holes.

I did the same with a Birds-eye maple stock. Both stocks took almost a year each to complete and I don't know how many coats I rubbed on. All that effort went by the wayside overtime.

After those episodes the rest of my stock re-does begins and ends with a couple coats of a clear satin plastic spray sanded in between or just spray painted some kind of camo treatment.


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...the satin plastic doesn't quite live up to a rubbed Tru-oil finish but DOES SEAL THE STOCK which was part of the reason for all the hoohaw. I stopped using steel wool after getting tiny rust speckles on one stock early on...my fault, I was probably in a hurry and didn't get it clean enough, but it was a lesson learned.

I think everyone who has done more than one stock ends up with a formula and procedure that works for them and that's what we all want anyway.

Enjoy your toys.

I know one darn good stockmaker that raises the whiskers per usual, leaves them to sand with his finish..claims it gives him more filling material to work with

A bit off topic but might raise a chuckle with you guys.

Back in the early '60s' I married a young farm girl. Sent her to have new recapped tires put on. She told me later she made the guys at the tire shop "shave those whiskers off the tires".
I never went back to that shop before we moved to another town, so don't know how long they laughed about it but, she wouldn't pay the bill til they did.

Cheers, enjoyed reading all these ways of doing the same thing I do.

George