Leman Stock Striping

[rjpalmer]

Has anyone tied Stock striping on a Leman or any other style rifle? I am interested about learning about this technique and seeing some examples. I am also interested in just how realistic, or similar this applied finish appears to be.

[LehighBrad]

I'm currently in the process of stripping down a stock on a southern Tennessee squirrel rifle right now. The plan is to strip, scrape and sand to thinner dimensions here and there, re-stain with a darker walnut color stain, then hand paint random striping all along the stock using various size modelers brushes and dark brown Feibings leather dye. After that, hand rub coats of Chambers finishing oil to a nice satin sheen. :-) I'll post pics when done.

[Jim Kibler]

It might work,  I would be afraid that the leather dye might dend to fade out along the edges, rather than create a sharp edge.  I beleive Jack Brooks has done some of this work and I think he may have used some kind of an ink fo rthe striping.  I think I recall Eric Kettenberg doing some of this work as well.  I may save you some trouble to check with those who have been down the same road.

Jim

[LehighBrad]

I'll do that Jim, thanks. Here is the rifle I'm re-finishing. As you can see, this is artifically striped OVER the Tru-Oil finish using Feibings dark brown leather dye. I'm hoping that by using very fine modelers brushes I'll be able to keep the dye stripes from fading and spreading out too awful much. Of course I'll use a test piece of plain maple first to see how it goes.

[LehighBrad]

Patchbox side view.....yeah I know, a Jacob Stoudenour patchbox on a southern Tennessee rifle???!!! Gimme a break...that was 4 or 5 years ago.....what did I know???

[rjpalmer]

That looks like a really nice job.I have tried to do striping with a few very fine artist's brushes and have even tried using feathers, all with India ink. My attempts were terrible as the lines bled and looked fuzzy. I believe some sort of sealer/finish must be applied before striping so that the India ink is on the finish instead of penetrating into the wood.
        I have only experimented and have not actually attempted to work on a stock. I did try to stripe a maple tomahawk handle. Ugh-I gave up.

[LehighBrad]

Yes I agree. I think rubbing in a "base coat" of Chambers oil after staining to somewhat "seal" the bare wood surface would be the way to go. That way the fine painted stripes hopefully won't bleed out too much. Then when the stripes are good and dry, rub on more coats of finish. Hoping all the while that THAT process doesn't smear the striping! Like I said, testing will be done on some scrap pieces of maple before I proceed. Perhaps if I use the finest brushes I have, just painting the thin stripes onto the unfinshed wood surface will produce only SLIGHT bleeding. That may give the effect I'm looking for after all.

[mattdog]

On original guns that I have seen the stripes are fuzzy and you can identify that they are applied.  It is part of the charm of original Lemans.  If you want sharp crisp stripes use curly maple.  Applied stripes are a way to make ordinary looking maple look like extraordinary maple.  It worked good enough for Henry to fool the Natives.

What experience I have is that whatver you put on the bare wood will bleed, ink, die, whatever.  Well, I s'pose paint wouldn't bleed but that would look horrible.  My thoughts:  anyone using the technique shoud do it to mimic the somewhat fuzzy stripes, not to try to create curly out of ordinary.

[Jim Kibler]

Sealing the stock first, makes good sense.  I now seem to recall others mentioning this before.  With regard to stripes being "fuzzy" or not, I think the word is a little subjective.  Here's a link to an example:

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=21366.0

Personally I wouldn't call these fuzzy, especially in areas that aren't worn.  Certainly not what you would expect from unsealed wood.  No question the painted on stripes are readily recognizable.

[B Shipman]

The nature of the striping depends upon the school.

Leman used ink on a stock stained but unsealed and so did anything west of Reading. Slightly fuzzy. More realistic but  still obvious. Probably many brushes attached on a line for efficiency.
 East of Reading the stock was sealed first giving a finer line but the striping was more obviously artificial. This was never intended to fake curl INMHO but rather to be a decoration.

[David Rase]

Here is the link to Jack Brooks web sight and his classroom section.  About 2/3 of the way down is how he stripes a Leman stock.
http://www.jsbrookslongrifles.com/theclassroom.htm
David