Finished my 24-gauge flintlock

Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Been working on this one the past couple of months. Bought an unchambered Belgian doublegun blank from Numrich and milled the flats, turned the wedding band, finished the round part, crowned it, breeched it, and drilled the flash hole. The lock is from Kibler, breech plug/tang, rammer thimbles, front sight, barrel tenons, tang screw and lock screws from Track of the Wolf, I made the butt plate, trigger guard, and side plate from 3/32"x2" cartridge brass bar from McMaster-Carr. Miscellaneous screws were scrounged from my antique cabinet screw stash and modified or cleaned up as needed and blued. Rammer is red oak from the blue home store that I turned down. Stock is from a standing dead black cherry tree I cut down earlier this year. Stain is dollar store oven cleaner neutralized with vinegar and finish is some boiled linseed oil fortified with lead acetate and raw umber powder, heated with limestone and polymerized with the driers. Four coats. I put too much dryers in it, it starts getting sticky before I even get a coat rubbed in, but it turned out okay even if a bit shiny. I have since rubbed a dirty patch on all the brass and it turned rainbows and grey, will rub it back some and probably rottenstone the finish too to kill the shine a bit.

I want to thank Rockydoc for sending me some graver points a couple-three years ago, they came in handy for some light detailing on the serpent side plate and trigger guard.

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Snakeoil

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Good lookin' piece, Ian. Nice job.

Stain is dollar store oven cleaner neutralized with vinegar and finish is some boiled linseed oil fortified with lead acetate and raw umber powder, heated with limestone and polymerized with the driers.
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Okay, you gonna have to 'splain dat one, Lucy.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
A solution made from a strong base like lye or heavy-duty oven cleaner reacts with cherrywood to darken it in a similar manner to ferric nitrate darkening maple. Ferric nitrate turns cherrywood black, though, so sodium hydroxide is preferred. Vinegar lightens and neutralizes the lye without affecting the color itself. I dislike alcohol dyes because they fade in the sun and with time, and pigment stains only muddy the delicate grain of cherrywood.

Boiled linseed oil is my favorite rifle finish but I have been frustrated with the lack of quality finishes made with it. Jim Filipski helped me out by sharing some very rare and mostly forgotten information with me about how to properly control the acid numbers of modern BLO by simmering with limestone chips and to use a combination of manganese/iron oxide (I used raw umber artist's oil paint) and dried lead acetate powder made from vinegar and bullet casting pot dross as driers and cooked them into the oil. I also, on a whim, added a spoonful of dried ashe juniper sap crumbles to the small batch when I cooked in the driers. It made a very nice varnish which accents the reds but I think too "rich" in driers and maybe a little too much resin.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Tomme boy said:
Nice!

Ammonia fuming darkens White Oak. About the only thing that will darken it.
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I was going to try that but my bottle of Parson's is so old it doesn't even have a smell anymore. The aerosol oven cleaner I had leftover from some stripping project or other was still good and worked so well on my test samples I didn't bother buying more ammonia. The main advantage that fuming might have over wiping is not having to raise the grain first. I never raised grain before on cherrywood and to my surprise it left the surface porous afterward and the first couple coats of varnish had a sheen like badly orange-peeled paint. Two more coats mostly filled it up, but I had to build up the varnish thickness a lot more than I like to to do it. I will get some fresh ammonia and experiment with it since I have a cherrywood Kibler Woodsrunner .54 caliber kit to finish next and I don't want it quite as electric purple/red as this one and plan to do some carving and really, really wish to avoid having to raise the grain on it as it is fast-grown fruitwood cherry and is far less dense.
 
Tomme boy

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
@Ian One of my uncles makes Victorian style furniture and cabinets for a living. He pisses in a bucket to save it for staining some of the wood as thats what these rich people want. They want it exactly like they used to make it. He has orders that take years to complete he is so busy. He turns down stuff all the time as he works at his own pace. Some of the cabinets use book matched wood. He really goes all out on some of this stuff.
 
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Ian

Ian

Notorious member
All I can think of is the house that got painted by a disgruntled sub-contractor who drank a lot of beer and pissed in the paint. It took a new painter several coats of Kilz 2 and a fresh topcoat to finally seal away the stench.

I may or may not have used good old whiz to rust-brown gun parts before.....
 
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