Thank you Tim, and everyone else! The barrel, trigger, trigger plate, slides and standing breech are rustetted...cold browned using Neider's formula as assembled by a friend of mine in Marysville, BC (Kootenays). The varnish is just a little cheap stuff I had left over, and it was starting to skin over, but I used it anyway. It took nearly three days for the first light coat to cure. So I remembered that sunlight activates linseed oil, and put the stock over the hood of my truck in the driveway...an hour on each side. That kicked it and I was satisfied that it was dry. I applied several more coats with a cotton flannel swatch, over a week's time frame. I cut it back with 4 ought steel wool, and applied Trewax lightly.
The ferric nitrate is a super saturated solution. It looks like dark tea - not as dark as Dan Pharis' but darker than I used before. It gave me a rich brown that is almost indestructable, but no red hues - @!*%?&! I have yet to see that on any experiments that I've done. I applied it twice and kicked it both times with the heat gun. I couldn't see any difference in the two applications so I stopped.
