Ferric Nitrate is probably the best stain ever used on maple.
It never fades, it can be made from crystals and water so its "safe". Its the RIGHT COLOR for a maple stocked rifle.
It also works great on Oak from a couple of pieces I did.
It requires minimal hoop jumping, it does not muddy the grain. Its the "right stuff" ( if Hydrochloric Acid is in the mix problems sometimes arise. So it needs to be Ferric NITRATE. Not a mix of Ferric Nitrate and Ferric Chloride).
Unless of course one is determined to make a gun a specific color. Since wood is ALL different and generally will not make the exact shade someone just has to have they then resort to various goops that may or may not (most likely will) fade over time and/or cover up the inherent beauty of the wood and/or turn green or some other color over time.
The brown varnish found on many old guns was somewhat brown when put (I have seen Ballards from the 1870s that had a pale yellow LSO varnish) on and likely has darkened with age if in an are where a lot of coal was used in industry and/or heating. Sometimes its turned nearly black. But this is not how it looked when new. From what I have read its a reaction with lead driers in the oil that causes this. Also from what I can determine the brown varnish (BLO with driers and some resin) was not used on the better curly maple guns or its been removed at some time it would obscure the figure, Not saying it was never used just that the Cury maple Hawken's, for example, seem to not have a brown coating covering up the curl. Apparently many straight grained Hawken rifles at least in later years where painted with this stuff. Fairly fast, not terribly shiny and it got the guns out the door with a finish on the wood. This was apparently a fairly viscous varnish that did not penetrate much but being fairly dark allowed coloring and finishing without staining and since plain hard maple is pretty bland anyway this was of little import.
A heavy LSO varnish will also cover scraper marks pretty well in very limited testing. (I gave my test stock to a friend to practice carving). But if its really applied as a brown varnish its basically a PAINT. A surface coating that does not penetrate significantly. But its also soft enough to expand and contract with the wood and not chip, craze or flake.
Walnut, unless very pale needs no stain unless one of the useless modern clear finishes is used then its going to look pretty flat and uninteresting unless its a really knock out piece of wood, staining this grade wood tends to hurt more than it helps. Natural oils tend to react with any species of walnut to produce enhanced appearance and selective darkening of the wood some places more than others. This brings out the depth and beauty in ways clear finishes simply don't. But it takes a week or more to really see it in most cases as the oil IN the wood fully kicks over.
Then there are "oil stains". CMP (Civilian Marksmanship Program) uses some horrid brown goo on stocks that must be removed. It appears to be some "walnut" oil stain that fortunately has very poor penetrating qualities and can be sanded off. Putting on a couple of coats of boiled LS oil curt with turp makes a considerable difference and the stock no longer looks like it was dipped in mud. Of the three stocks I refinished only one needed Brownell's pre-64 in one pale place on a handguard. In any event the BLO looks a lot better and I sealed places with it they did not apply the mud to.
The problem I see here repeatedly is a number of people who:
1. Do not understand period wood finishes.
2. Are convinced that modern marketing claims of "new and improved" are actually true. For the most part they are not where FIREARMS are concerned.
3. Are intent on forcing the stock to be a color it does not want to be so they used 2-3-5 coats of stain and may never get it anyway.
4. Are in the business of creating quasi fake firearms and accouterments and put on what ever it takes to create the "effect" .
Then a number of them wonder why what they are doing does not look like it should the "antiqued" stuff is usually not correct for example since it requires knowing, well I better just let this go...
Does anyone think that every gun JP Beck or John Armstrong made stained to the same color? Why would they CARE?
You gotta use the same stuff to get the same effect. Its impossible to stain two different stocks with a stain common in the 18th c and get the same color UNLESS its virtually a paint like a brown varnish and even then....
Does ANYONE here think that ANYONE making guns to sell used 40 coats of finish over a month or more?
A rifle can be stained, oiled with a light BLO allowed to soak a few minutes then wiped dry, assembled and hunted with on the SAME DAY. I have done it and it will give a decent finish in the long term is the oil is thinned a little to allow penetration. I suspect that a lot of working guns were done just this way. Fast, effectlive, works. For a plain rifle, especially on the frontier, this or a coat of soft oil varnish is all that was needed.
So home made stains? Other than Ferric Nitrate and Walnut and Butternut Hull extracts, which I am out of, I don't really use anything else that is "home made". I do use pre-64 and "english red" spirit stains when I have to color match two pieces of walnut but these are store bought stains. All have served me well in making and repairing. The hull extracts especially saved a friend and a company I worked for some trouble once upon a time and apparently these or something very much like them were used at least in the 1870s on pale walnut by at least one factory on military grade rifles. But they penetrate poorly in many cases compared to a spirit stain the extracts seem to have a surface tension. ?
Dan
