Thats how its supposed to look.
You can do what you want but the more you mess with it the more artificial it will look.
And permalyn is not a good finish, none of the synthetics look as good as boiled linseed oil or a soft LS oil varnish. Bivins used it to meet a time line not for how good it was. Varathane is particularly bad looks like the wood figure was painted.
Below is found in Bill Knight’s and Williams Mende’s “Staining and Finishing For Muzzleloading Gun Builders”
Paraphrased for the most part.
“The modern polymers being pushed as linseed oil replacements suffer the problem of chemical decomposition shortly after being applied… the chemicals produced in the process serve to catalyze decomposition..”
The previous paragraph speaks to, debunks, the claims of the various problems of natural drying oils, rotting wood due to acidity, when done properly a linseed oil finish has a lower organic acid level than most modern finishes. And that the natural drying oils tend to continue to polymerize over time and then break down. But ignoring that “.. this “life cycle” takes hundreds of years with a well made oil film.”
This book was published by Dixon’s who owns the rights and I suspect is out of print as a result. Mine just appeared in the mail one day IIRC.
Most modern finishes are far too thin, they are generally 90-95% solvents. As is Permalyn, so they “dry” by evaporation of the solvents the fumes of which are not something I care the breath. The high level of solvents means there is relatively little actual finish in a cup full of the stuff.
