Finish (not stain) used at the Williamsburg gunshop?

[Mad Monk]

Dan,

Thanks for the time you took to write your last post and for the pictures.  I am convinced, after much reading and email discussions with Mad Monk (and your last e-mail) that I need to learn the art of making a proper 18th century linseed oil finish.  Per your last e-mail to me, I am gathering the gear I need to either make an acceptable finish or light my back yard on fire.  I will let you and Mad Monk know how it turns out.

By the way, have you ever tried using egg shells instead of limestone to reduce the acidity when boiling the oil?  They are both calcium carbonate.  It's just easier for me to find egg shells than limestone.

Dave C

Check the labels on Tums and Roll Aids in the drug store.  One is calcium carbonate and one is magnesium carbonate.  Both are anti-acids.

[awol]

Gary,  Do you apply the beeswax to the barrel channel,  lock mortise, inside the box ?

[Pete G.]

I often wonder why people will go to great lengths to document stuff like fabrics, down to TPI, clothing, shoes, how the barrel was welded and bored and rifled, how a stock was carved and the wood was smoothed then smear anything they have around the shop on it for finish and figure it good. I find the use of modern synthetics particularly amusing.
Dan

Not to mention cast locks and machine made barrels............

[JTR]

Not to bust a bubble, but the Hawken rifle that dphariss posted never started life covered in that dark color.
That dark brown/black/redish color is nothing more than an old finish that has oxidized over the years into a darker color, and is seen on many old guns with an original finish.
Here's a couple more examples.





John

[J. Talbert]

Check the labels on Tums and Roll Aids in the drug store.  One is calcium carbonate and one is magnesium carbonate.  Both are anti-acids.

FYI:  The active ingredient in Tums is calcium carbonate, but the formulation would also include: binders, dye and flavoring.  Not sure how those would affect the finish???

Jeff

[Stophel]

I see no reason whatsoever for de-acidifying the oil, and in fact, I can imagine that to really do so would require the addition of so much lime that you would end up with white paint.   

[Dphariss]

I see no reason whatsoever for de-acidifying the oil, and in fact, I can imagine that to really do so would require the addition of so much lime that you would end up with white paint.   

Except that the acids SLOW THE DRYING and do other undesirable things. It is impossible to make oil cloth from "boiled oil" from the store since in most cases the acidity will destroy the cloth within a year or so, according to reports.
A few pieces of limestone, 2-3 about the size of my thumb whacked with a hammer to increase surface area will do for a gallon of oil. But it will only work if the oil is heated. As the heat increases the oil will begin to bubble around the calcium carbonate as the neutralization starts.

Dan

[Dphariss]

I often wonder why people will go to great lengths to document stuff like fabrics, down to TPI, clothing, shoes, how the barrel was welded and bored and rifled, how a stock was carved and the wood was smoothed then smear anything they have around the shop on it for finish and figure it good. I find the use of modern synthetics particularly amusing.
Dan

Not to mention cast locks and machine made barrels............

This is a perfect example of one of the problems I see a lot, apparently if we cannot do things just as they were done years ago why bother with anything.
Do you really think that the barrels on original rifles were made without the use of machines? Like water powered trip hammers? Do you think that all barrels were shop made in Colonial America? PA had a lot of barrel forgers who did nothing but make barrels you know. Then there were the imports.

It is virtually impossible to tell a good piece of wrought iron, cold rolled, hot rolled or cast steel from the other once properly polished. Lower end wrought iron may show inclusions, especially if heat treated but it *looks* the same.
The most amusing thing about using synthetics is that they seem to require 4 to 10 times the work.
Several coats of stain of various colors to get the color right and who knows how many coats of thin watery finish.
Using AF and home made oil I can put a pretty good finish on Maple with one application of stain, heat, neutralize, then 2 coats of finish. About 3 days total till the gun is ready to shoot. When I read here that someone spent a month putting finish on a stock I wonder if they have really thought this through.
There has been so much BS written about stock finishing over the years that its no wonder there are such lousy finishes out there. It is apparent that sometime around WW-I or perhaps late 19th century the manner is which gunsmiths used to finish stocks or at least what they used, was lost at least for the most part. I believe this coincides with modern industry making "boiled oil" by cold processes. This makes it far, far less useful for stock work but apparently makes little difference to the paint industry. But the paint industry does not care about stock finishing.
When they lost the knowledge of how to make the finish or buy it the way to finish the stock was lost too.
The "how hard can I make this" school of stock finishing seems to have started about this time. The custom makers of the 40s and 50s were using various varnishes, bartop varnish and others. Being thin and hard finishes the filling of walnut became a real chore. Many of the big name stock finishes at wally world or the local gunstore are just about as bad.
Having lost the way the finishes were used even if they can get good boiled oil people use it wrong even after being carefully instructed in some cases.
So we have people using Tung Oil or other modern solvent laden varnish, or some varathane or varathane like product, stains that may or may not be reactive in sun light. All sorts of problems result. Too much work, inhaling solvent fumes (think "huffing"), poor color on the wood. People would almost have to strip a modern plastic finished walnut stock with decent figure and refinish with real boiled oil to appreciate this. There is a major difference folks.
There are a host of things that can be avoided by using a simple to make oil varnish as I have repeatedly described. But there are people who have either tried to use the over the counter boiled oil and will now not use linseed on anything. Others will not use it because its not waterproof enough. Its impossible in our context to make wood waterproof. If the finish is hard enough to be waterproof it is generally too hard to move when the wood does it will then check or crack and pass water. Moderns have gone to great lengths with this to the point of putting stocks in a vacuum tank full of epoxy and impregnating the wood to the greatest extent possible with epoxy. Yeah its pretty waterproof, its strong and its heavy.
So forget "waterproof". Water resistant is all that is needed and all you are likely to get.

Using a stain like AF or nitrate of iron and a properly prepared linseed oil or linseed oil based varnish finish results in a very color fast stock finish with the right look and invariably with less work overall.
The extra time, the extra work and the fact that the synthetics generally look different (worse in most cases) are what make the use of synthetics most amusing.
People use "new and improved" and actually increase their work load to obtain a look that at its very best is no better than the traditional finishes and is often "deficient".

Like I said people will go to great lengths to put on the right patchbox shape, the proper hardware, maybe make a barrel, they assure the carving is correct for the time and place, that the patchbox is a certain depth. Then finish it with a synthetic dye and plastic oil or something else that is not found on gunstocks in early America because they have not taken the time to look into gunstock finishes of the time.
Why?
Its not easier. It does not look better. Its really no more protective. It probably is more dangerous and usually takes more time.
Why?
Dan

[smshea]

All of this is really interesting ....well, not really considering we all know that oil was the predominantly used finish on MOST rifles. Oh wait!.... the original question was.... What have they used at the Williamsburg gun shop?  Asked and answered by someone who worked there. The question was not about what was the most commonly used finish 200 or even 150 years ago in the gun building regions here in the colonies or states but about what Wallace , Gary , John and others have been doing for that last 50 years.
 For the record, I have great respect for your gun building knowledge and I actually don't disagree with you that allot or even most guns were finished as you say....but not all! I can point to several examples from around these parts....but they were not tested scientifically and some of those were Schimmels/poor boys which I know didn't exist in any numbers according to you but we have had that discussion already and this thread is about what was done at Williamsburg which I can't speak to because I didn't work there .....either.
 If Gary is still reading, I would be interested in knowing if the virginity of the bees wax had any bearing on the finial outcome ?

[Mad Monk]

Not to bust a bubble, but the Hawken rifle that dphariss posted never started life covered in that dark color.
That dark brown/black/redish color is nothing more than an old finish that has oxidized over the years into a darker color, and is seen on many old guns with an original finish.
Here's a couple more examples.





John

John,

The blackening of the finish in certain areas is not the result of oxidation of the finish or the stain beneath it.
The black surface coloration is the hallmark of a boiled oil finish or a varnish made with boiled linseed oil.  At the time in question here the standard dryer metal used in commercial boiled oil was lead.  Used in boiled oils up until about WWII in this country.

As the individual oil films (coats) dry the spent lead dryer metal is kicked to the surface of the oil film.  When air containing sulfur-bearing gases contacts the oil film the spent lead dryer is converted to a lead sulfide.

As a more modern example.  When we produced certainh types of PVC film and sheeting we were not allowed to have any amount of lead stabilizer or lead based pigments in certain types of PVC film.  To test for this we cut a narrow strip of the PVC film and placed it in a test tube full of distilled water.  Hydrogen sulfide gas was then bubbled through the water.  If there was any lead present in the film it would turn grey or black.  This was a standard lab test.

Same chemistry applies to a lead boiled oil or a varnish made with a lead boiled oil.

Some years ago I was contacted to a furniture restoration guy from Bucks County PA.  He specialized in English furniture from the 1600's into the 1800's.  He had read sometime I wrote about this surface blackening of boiled oil finishes.  The English commonly used boiled oil (lead dryer) on furniture.  So how to get the black surface (patina) without filling the finishing room with hydrogen sulfide after finishing the piece.  So I fixed him up with charred bore black ground into boiled linseed oil as a final top coat to reproduce that surface blackening.

[JTR]

Thanks for that information MM, and I learned something! I guess calling it oxidation, was my laymans term for what turned the old finishes black.

I'm interested in your concoction of charred bore black. Do you mean bone black?
I'd be most interested in getting my hands on some of your stuff!

Thanks,
John

[Dphariss]

Not to bust a bubble, but the Hawken rifle that dphariss posted never started life covered in that dark color.
That dark brown/black/redish color is nothing more than an old finish that has oxidized over the years into a darker color, and is seen on many old guns with an original finish.
<snip>
John

Since most old finishes are dark  that are  I assumed it was darker to some greater or lesser extent than when new. I thought I had posted something to that effect, would the stuff I am making be darker in 150 years etc,  but cannot find it in skimming the posts so I either did not type it in or I edited it out. Do-do occurs. But as a modifier to this some or most Ballards/Sharps/Henrys/Winchesters that are perhaps 10-40 years younger that do not show significant darkening at all. So I hesitate the assume the Hawken is a lot darker than it was made though it *probably* is. Or we might assume that by the time these mid-late 19th century rifles were made the firearms industry had figured out the darkening thing and had changed formulas for their use. I may have mentioned that I have seen Ballards, for example that likely dated to 1870s-80s that had no darkening of the finish at all, just a almost transparent yellowish varnish.
But then the rifle may have never had a lot of sulfur exposure.
 
In the context of the Hawken finish vs the Kentucky pictured and MMs comments on sulfur. We have to consider the  places where the rifles "lived" SFAIK the Hawken has been in the "far" west since it was purchased and never east of St Louis. The Kentucky lived where there was a LOT of coal being burnt probably by the 1820-30s at least. While coal was used as a heating fuel out here it was much later than PA and FAR FAR lower concentration of people and coal use was far less especially since we have no steel mills. So less sulfur in the air, less reaction of the finish in the west than in the north east especially. Less darkening of the finish. It would be interesting to know what the finish looked like on the Hawken, or the Kentucky for that matter circa 1900. Was the Hawken dark in 1900 or as dark as it is now.
While I assumed the finish on this rifle was darker than when applied it still has a nice red tint to it, a indicator of lead, the red tint was my prime interest, wondering how red it was when applied, but this will likely require lead. In its place I played around (slightly) with oxides to some extent as an experiment. I can buy the oxides easier than finding the lead additives.

Dan

[jwh1947]

Wow, I'm really learning, here. Tell me more.  But, I must have beeswax from killer-hybrid bees that Martin sent us.  It gets gluey on my hands and I need to use Rakija with Ajax soap to get it off. 

[Mad Monk]

Thanks for that information MM, and I learned something! I guess calling it oxidation, was my laymans term for what turned the old finishes black.

I'm interested in your concoction of charred bore black. Do you mean bone black?
I'd be most interested in getting my hands on some of your stuff!

Thanks,
John

John,

The aging (breaking down) of a boiled oil is something of a reverse oxidation.  The oil film drys by adding oxygen to the oil to link oil molecules together into long linear "chains".  The worst enemy of a boiled oil film is UV light.  It breaks down the linkages and the dried film begins to return to an oil state.  The finish gets gummy and oily as it breaks down.  (Think of the old vinyl car interiors in this.  Chemically, PVC compounds and linseed oil have something in common in chemical structure.)

If you by bone meal at a garden supply center you can char it the same as you would char cloth or charcoal.  Funny part is that of the various industrial black pigments, charred bone has the least amount of carbon but gives nearly the most intense black.

I used to do it by using large tin plate salve tins from the drug store.  Punch a very tiny hole in the lid with a little nail.  Fill it with bone meal.  Cover and place over a fire until no more smoke comes out the tiny vent hole.  Charred bone is very soft and grinds easily.
Place some of the ground charred bone in a mortor, add a bit of boiled oil and then grind the bone black with (into) the oil.  Use this as a final coat.  You can apply it where you want the finish blackened.
When you look at photos of originals and you see sections of the finish black while other areas look normal you are looking at the wearing of the surface where the gun is normally handled.  So by spot application of the blackened oil to can duplicate the aged, used, look.

[JTR]

Thanks for that MM!
I look forward to giving it a try when I have the chance.
John

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

More trouble than black spray paint. ...but easier to control!!

[JTR]

haha, true, but I gave up on black paint a long time ago!
John

[Clowdis]

Hot wax on maple, now that's interesting. What type of wax, beeswax, parrafin? Wax mixed with linseed?

Beeswax applied hot and litterally melted into the wood has been my favorite finish on maple for many years. I usually apply it three or four times but it depends on how the wood absorbs the hot wax. In any one application some parts of the stock will soak up a lot more wax than other parts depending on the angle of the grain, etc.

After the rifle is finished I have the owner maintain it with blend of beeswax and turpentine (with a few drops of linseed oil) mixed to about the consistency of Vaseline. Wipe a tiny bit on and buff it off with a soft cloth.

I have no desire to use any modern petroleum based waxes.

Gary

Gary,
Just curious as to whether or not you ever have any of the wax leach back out of the wood during the hot summers we have here in Virginia and the Carolinas? I've seen that happen on some older pieces that were finished with linseed oil after they've sat in the sun for a while and the wood becomes a little bit sticky. Seems like beeswax would do the same thing.
Blair

[Stophel]

The ones I have seen that are dark have kind of a smoky look...it's not just opaque black.

[flintriflesmith]

Just curious as to whether or not you ever have any of the wax leach back out of the wood during the hot summers we have here in Virginia and the Carolinas? I've seen that happen on some older pieces that were finished with linseed oil after they've sat in the sun for a while and the wood becomes a little bit sticky. Seems like beeswax would do the same thing.Blair

While I have seen linseed oil sweat out tiny droplets in the hot sun I have never had bees wax get the least bit sticky. I think some folks who try wax on open pored wood like walnut may have had a problem because the wax is being asked to fill the grain. I have only used it on maple and it penetrates deep into the wood and never seems to come out. It will go in well over a 1/16 of an inch and on one rifle we made it actually penetrated through the thin cross section of the forestock in to the barrel channel.
As I read comments about how bees wax is not water resistant I remember the bows and arrows recovered from the Mary Rose ship wreck of the coast of England. They were finished with bees wax and survived very well.

Gary

[Clowdis]

Thanks Gary!

[rich pierce]

It does just soak and soak in when I have used it on tool handles and has not sweated out when working on the forge, and that gets pretty hot.

[Dphariss]

The linseed that comes back out of the pores of the wood is not prepared properly before use.
It will do this when the first coat, the seal coat, is set in the sun to dry but not on subsequent coats. This is true of almost any finish I have ever used. Air pressure in the pores will force the finish back out as the wood warms unless the finish drys.

As I have stated before. Beeswax is not documentable as a stock finish SFAIK.
How about coil spring locks, and plastic trigger guards that look like brass? Its impossible to build a traditional rifle with these but what the heck nobody can tell a coil spring lock without taking it out right? (or so some might think) A brass look alike will not be detectable unless the gun is actually in someones hand and its LOTS easier to cast than brass.
I guess we could relief carve a pickup truck on the stock or maybe the space shuttle.

I would guess that beeswax was probably less common than linseed oil and what was used on Long Bows in the Mary Rose is totally irrelevant to a Kentucky long rifle unless there is some documentation (with provenance) for its use.
If BW works so good and is so easy, how come it was not in wide spread use?

Dan

[Acer Saccharum]

I have a maple stocked longrifle I shoot year round, and it's finished with beeswax. Get the wood hot, and keep feeding the wax. It doesn't waterspot, cloud, or weep. It looks like bare wood. Great finish.

Tom

[flintriflesmith]

As I have stated before. Beeswax is not documentable as a stock finish SFAIK.
Dan

Dan,
I'm glad you added "As Far As I Know" to your statement because there are thousands of surviving rifles were no one has ever scientifically analyzed the finish to try and find out what the first finish was. Varnish finishes that have worn through are fairly easy to spot but identifying the make up of  the first coat of penetrating finishes without some serious equipment is largely speculation.
The comment about the archery equipment on the Mary Rose was intended only as a reference to wax being a fairly water resistant finish compared to paint, varnish, etc.
There is plenty of documentation for the availability of bees wax as candles, etc. Several period books on cabinetmaking finishes use it. One rifle, that you may know of, by John Davidson of Rockbridge Co. VA -- shown on the cover of one of Whisker's books-- appears to have a wax finish even after all these years.
I realize that nothing more I can say will change your mind and confess that your comparison of wax finish to coil spring locks and plastic trigger guards is pushing me to ignore your posts.
Gary