If you properly raise the grain before staining there is no need to do anything to the stock after staining is complete. The grain must be raised with every sanding grit. I tend to start while doing the final shaping with files and scrapers.
Trying to whisker a stock that has been stained will produce white edges.
I tend to neutralize. However, I also wonder if this is needed with a well saturated stain, where iron is added till there is no further reaction is seen. Then we have acid free or near acid free finishes. If the linseed oil base, for example, is acid neutralized as it needs to be, will this tend to counter any acid remaining in the stock?
If an acid stain is used and not neutralized there are too many accounts of stocks turning black and parts rusting after installation in the stock for me to risk it.
Chromium Trioxide gives me the creeps thinking about it.
In the late 19th and early 20th, when mass produced wood finishing products really kicked in a great deal of the technology of shop made stains and finishes were lost. You can see this from the silliness that can be read in Gunsmithing/Stock finishing writings of the 30s-40s-50s-60s and later... Applying Bar Top Varnish then working it back with a buffing wheel. Coating Linseed Oil with chassis grease to "dry" it. Spending a month on a stock finish etc etc. Much of this carries on today.
It has nothing to do with what was done in the past and in most cases the modern stains and finishes have serious shortcomings in the long term. But people are CONVINCED that "new" has to be better. This is true in one way. If the makers don't CLAIM its better why would anyone by it?
So its "better", "new and improved", "easier to use" (in stock finishes this almost never the case), "water proof" (laughable in virtually all cases) or what ever else the seller can think up.
I have seen old guns that were Linseed oil varnish finished that have had all the finish worn away. I have seen others for the 1870s for example with a lot if not all the finish left. Under magnification its possible to see brush strokes or perhaps "finger prints" from the palm of someones hand.
These guns, like the varnish finished Kentucky and Hawken rifles of the past were "painted" with a heavy bodied varnish that was too viscous to soak in or run in thin coats. It simply lay on the surface and dried to a shine. One coat finish.
A lighter bodied boiled oil or varnish (anything that dried to a shine back in the day was "varnish" spirit or oil) will soak in. A gun or rifle stock can be painted will all this that is will soak up over the period of an hour or two, be wiped dry, assembled and is ready to deliver. This finish will last for years. On walnut it will be pretty dull, but on maple it will shine up with handling and look better in a week than it does new.
I suspect that a lot of the "grease" (dull) finished guns were done in just this way.
I constantly see people here who grossly over think and overwork stock finishing, some of this is from lack of experience, some is from "new and improved" products. Using "oils" or "varnishes" that are 70% Stoddard Solvent and/or other toxic/semi-toxic solvents for example, nearly as viscous as water.....
So its going to take 10-30 coats to make a finish.... Most of what is applied goes into the atmosphere, or the finishers lungs. People should get an MSDS on any of this stuff if they have any curiosity as to what they are breathing.
Yeah, this has all been said before.
Still there are always new people.
Then as a Chief Pilot once told me when I was thinking I was talking too much to student pilots in flight; "Thats OK they only hear 1/2 of what you say anyway" (CFI-I 21447xx).
Dan
