walnut finish

[cmac]

What would be a good finish for walnut(American) other than linseed oil. I would like a dark stock but I don't want to hide the figure in the wood. Was thinking maybe a danish oil or teak oil?

[tallbear]

I used Spar Varnish on this one.Danish oil is not designed to build up on the surface and would take many coats to fill walnut which is very porous.

Mitch

[Dphariss]

Properly prepared linseed oil or linseed oil varnishes or even the "boiled oil" sold in hardware stores does not "hide" the figure but enhances it.
One must remember that there is actually more BS out there concerning linseed oil as a stock finish than fact.
Raw oil might excessively darken the wood but I am not sure about that either. While it was used by the military they also typically covered the guns with petroleum grease before storage and this can cause problems with the wood finish and may be why they used raw oil. Don't know.
Petroleum oils and greases can blacken walnut.
The dark finish found on many original guns in the east is the result of sulfur from burning coal reacting with the linseed based finish to blacken it.

Dan

[Stophel]

Nothin's prettier than a nice piece of walnut with a real boiled linseed oil finish.   

[razor62]

Here's one that I built. Kinda' a mongrel, it's a conglomeration of parts that I accumulated and it's certainly not HC. The walnut blank was bought sight unseen from Numrich Arms Corp. for $56.00 and it turned out to be a pretty nice piece of wood. This one was finished with Birchwood Casey's Tru-Oil. Wet sanded with Tru-Oil to fill the grain and hand rubbed Tru-Oil several coats. Knocked some gloss back by rubbing down with machine oil / FFFF rotten stone paste then waxed with Johnsons paste wax.

[volatpluvia]

I have used the hardware store boiled linseed on walnut guns and the grain is enhanced and comes out with the pleasing brown with red untertones.   One coat will do it for color and grain enhancement.  Then finish it with tung oil or Chamber's 18th century style varnish.
volatpluvia

[Ed Wenger]

I've had great results with real boiled linseed oil.  I've done it where it's brushed on fairly heavy, then after a couple of days, wipe it off to fill the pores.  Let it dry for a couple more days then top with Permalyn or Chambers finish.  Or, just lighter coats of real boiled linseed oil.  I love the look...

But, if you don't want to go that route, like Mitch said, spar varnish works really well also.


              Ed

[Karl K.]

Here's a J. Henry I did with Chamber's Oil

Karl

[Rainman]

I like to fill the pores with 3lb cut Shellac and then use Tru-oil.  The Shellac can be Garnet or Blonde depending on whether you want a red tint to the Stock.

[rich pierce]

Karl, I love that rifle.

[cmac]

I guess I will do linseed oil. I've used it before on a french type d fusil I built and it is dark but the figure does still show. Thanks for all the comments