Burnish/Bone Stock Before or After First Oil Coat?

[McJames]

I finished scraping my stock, and stained with ferric nitrate, and am going to use Beck’s oil. I was reading about burnishing stocks on other threads/forums, and the consensus seemed to be that the correct time to do so was after applying the ferric nitrate. If I burnish before applying the first coat of oil, won’t I seal off the pores and prevent the oil from soaking in properly?

[Pukka Bundook]

Rightly or wrongly, I burnish after giving the stock a good slopping of linseed cut with turpentine.
The oil makes the fibres stay down when burnished.
Others are more experts than me, so don't go by that I do alone!

[Sidelock]

I burnish after the first coat of fill/oil.  On some jobs I'll continue to burnish the stock after the 2nd, 3rd and maybe 4th coats as well, just depends.  Wiskering the stock before the first coat of oil cuts down on the burnishing job later.  A well scraped stock may not need wiskering but, I do it at least once just to be sure.  I got a couple commercially produced burnishers and one I made for tight areas but, by far the best burnisher I have is about a 5" hunk of Whitetail Deer antler, works great!

[Daryl]

I've never burnished or boned a stock. Perhaps it helps seal the grain as well, don't know. But - I do know it took 56 coats of oil to "Browning" finish a REALLY piece of Claro for a friend.
Sanding every 3 thin coats, then applying more, more sanding, more coats then once all of the pores were filled, three thin coats that were polished with an oiled rouge to a grande piano finish.
That's what he wanted. Maybe burnishing would have sped up that process or doing the sanding slurry of oil and wood to fill.
I used 1500 grit paper to take the finish back down to the wood between ever 3 coats.
That took a LOG time, one full day between coats to make sure the finish was hard.

[Eric Kettenburg]

You can also get the same burnished effect with a wadded up old-style brown paper bag.  Lots of scrubbing pressure and you should feel some heat generated.  Will slick things right up.  Some guys use those purple or green scrubby pads in between coats of oil and they can work too but are much more prone to wearing high points or edges or inletting if you're not careful.  Old worn brown paper bag will not do this and for all the world looks just like a stock that's been burnished with some form of hard, rounded burnishing tool.  Except, w/ the brown bag method, you can get at areas that are very difficult to burnish.

[Pukka Bundook]

Eric,
I have never heard of the brown paper bag method, thank you for that!

I have  just used wood, antler or bone.

[Eric Kettenburg]

I don't remember when I first tried it, probably one of my many experiments with 'aging' that didn't work out in the way that I imagined, but worked out in a different way.  I think it's probably comparable to burnishing with a piece of relatively soft wood. 

You've got to really wad it up tightly, and use a LOT of pressure - you absolutely need to feel some 'heat.'  Good workout if nothing else.

[T*O*F]

A wad of burlap works too.  However, I haven't seen burlap bags in a good while.  Used to get them at the feed mill, but haven't seen one of those in many years either.

[Jim Kibler]

I don't remember when I first tried it, probably one of my many experiments with 'aging' that didn't work out in the way that I imagined, but worked out in a different way.  I think it's probably comparable to burnishing with a piece of relatively soft wood. 

You've got to really wad it up tightly, and use a LOT of pressure - you absolutely need to feel some 'heat.'  Good workout if nothing else.

I first heard about this from Don Getz years ago.  He was a big fan of it...