Awful black color using Fiberling Black Shoe dye

[Dennis Glazener]

Here are a few photos of the rifle that I used Fiberling Black Shoe Dye on. It looks worse in person , it has a fake plastic plastic look to it. I first put it on pretty heavy and it was so black it covered the grain. I then sanded it off and tried a diluted solution which took several coats to make it even look half-way presentable. Finally gave up and put Chambers oil finish on it hoping the reddish cast of the Chambers oil would help, it didn't! I decided to just build another rifle (keep this one for myself) for the customer since he nor I like the black finish (plus the worm holes, he didn't mind those but I did!). I have not finished the replacement rifle but I can assure you I will not try the Fiberling dye on it I will probably use one of the bone black recipes floating around.
Dennis

[P.W.Berkuta]

REALLY UGLY --- I would sand it down to bare wood - leave what dye is down deep and use an oil finish. I guess that's why you do test samples before putting it on the real product.

[rsells]

Dennis,
I use Fiebings leather dye on all of my rifles.  I am not sure if we are talking about the same dye or not.  I wrote a long response to your note, but it appears it didn't go through.  Give me a call at 931-445-3790 and I will tell you how I mix the dye I use to  get a dark brown color between the curls and a very dark curl using Fiebings.  I normally use 320 sand paper and steel wool to pull the color back to the darkness I desire before applying the finish.  I would think you could use 320 to pull the color back to nearly the natural color of the wood, and reapply another color dye to make the rifle look a bunch better.  The darker color in the curl may actually make the curl show up more vivid. I will send you a photo of one of my rifles to show you the color I get with my process.  Good luck with the work.
                                                                                    Roger Sells

[bama]

Dennis I would scrape that stock back and use AF to restain the stock. I have found that if you heat AF before letting get real dry that you can almost turn a stock black by carefully heating past the blush stage. Carefully is the key word here because you can scorch the stock if the heat is held in one spot to long. I would try befor starting over again.

[Dennis Glazener]

can almost turn a stock black by carefully heating past the blush stage

I agree on some wood that works well but I have gotten some maple that just will not turn dark with any of the AF I have used. I think it depends on the wood and I need to start testing the stains before I put them on the stock. Used to just go with what came out but lately I have gotten some real stinkers and had to add some Laurel Forge stain to get it where I wanted it.
Dennis

[PPatch]

Well Dennis, that black shoe dye finish didn't work too well, but that is a very nice looking rifle under the stain, good work! I'm with Bama, scrape it back to as close to bare wood as possible, then AF it to get some reddish brown on it and go from there.

dave

[PPatch]

I believe you are right about some maple not wanting to go but so far with AF (1:3 Ferric Nitrate in my case) no matter how many coats you apply. I have that with the maple stain tests I am doing for that plains rifle I'm building.



Which isn't bad but I wanted a darker overall tone with more contrast. I then did a test with tannic acid and FN, the result was more contrast but only a couple of shades darker overall. So I upped the tannic acid ratio to a full tablespoon in a pint of water and repeated the test - about the same as the second test. The maple just didn't seem to want to go any darker.



dave

[Gaeckle]

Dennis,

Fiebings black leather dye has a lot of blue in it and it is a rather 'cold' color to boot. The last rifle I made (that little half stock) I used dark brown leather dye by Fiebings. Dark brown has a nice reddish tint to it, which I like and leaves a somewhat warm impression. I bet if you scrape that stock down and apply a lighter tone of dye to it (lancaster maple, nut brown, honey maple by Laurel Mountain Forge) you'd be surprised as to how nice that turns out. The striping would be rather vivid and the contrast appealing.

I tried  black leather dye once and that's exactly the results I got, but I was able to resolve it by scraping and applying a lighter tone.

[BOB HILL]

Dennis, I think I would sand or scrape the finish off and use some fiebings dark brown leather dye # 124 to tone down that blue tone the back has. They have two dark browns I don't use the other. 124 has a yellow base.  Cut it with alcohol to lighten it if you like. You can always go darker. I use it thinned if I want to get a little more yellow after using AF........Bob

[Tim Crosby]

 Maybe just get out the Black spray paint and go from there. Either that or Tar, Bac'a and Kerosene.

  Tim C.

PS: I like it but would play with it. I think I got you into this TC

[conquerordie]

I appreciate you posting it. It's a good lessen to newer builder like me. First, this dye might not be the best choice by itself to finish a rifle stock. Second, you tried something new, and are learning how to fix it. Live and learn. Third, once again the wealth of knowledge on this forum will save the day.
Greg

[Dennis Glazener]

Maybe just get out the Black spray paint and go from there.

I had been seriously considering that Tim. I haven't had the nerve to try it on other finished guns but this one won't bother me a bit to spray her down! What's a little more crud to remove if it doesn't turn out.
Dennis

[Dennis Glazener]

The last rifle I made (that little half stock) I used dark brown leather dye by Fiebings. Dark brown has a nice reddish tint to it, which I like and leaves a somewhat warm impression. I bet if you scrape that stock down and apply a lighter tone of dye to it (lancaster maple, nut brown, honey maple by Laurel Mountain Forge) you'd be surprised as to how nice that turns out.

I probably would have used the LMF nut brown but the customer did not want any red in the finish hence the black that I used.

I have never been a fan of any of the stains for a gun stock, always relied on AquaFortis except on one or two that I used LMF nut brown/lancaster maple but I just didn't like the way it looked over the grain. Just a mind set I guess.

Not sure what I will end up doing but it will be some type of experiment with black paint or bone black before I strip it. I figure if I am going to the hard job of stripping/scrape it down I may as well try a few other things first. My wife has been after me to keep at least one Gillespie that I have made so this will be it and no telling what color it will be when I finish with it!
Dennis

[Scota4570]

All is not lost.  I would not be the least bit disappointed, it is a start.  Before I cut it cut to bare wood I would try something else.

Clean off everything you can with acetone or lacquer thinner.  Think of the black as a first base layer.  I would sand it back until it is about half bare wood is showing, if needed.  I would then go over it with AF,  then then something with more red, possibly a dark walnut and/or mahogany. Use good dyes like LMF.

I bought all of the LMF dye stains.  I mix and match on all jobs until I am happy with it.  To get an idea of what the finished stock will looks like I use mineral spirits.  That way I have not put on real finish that will mess up further staining adjustments.   I have never had good luck with shoe dye on gunstocks.  Since a good stick is going to cost a couple of hundred $ and up, I don't feel bad about spending on real stains and dyes. 

http://www.laurelmountainforge.com/stain_colors%20v4.htm

When you layer the colors and use the differential absorption rates of the grain you can achieve stunning results.  That is a nice piece of wood.  I would not spray paint it.  There is no reason it cannot be made to look wonderful.   

[WadePatton]

I tried about 14 combinations of Fiebings dyes (6 or 5 of them) on test pieces for my deer gun (maple) and couldn't make anything look decent.  I finally settled on "tannic supplement" -of the box variety    and two cycles of A/F and blushing. 

As far as the spray-bomb black goes, I'm thinking that you'd want a desirable color to rub back to before applying the paint.  That's just a guess though. 

[dogcatcher]

I am curious was this the Fiebings alcohol based dye or the  Fiebings oil based dye?

[David Price]

Dennis,

I think the rifle looks great.  Not just exceptable but really nice.  I can't believe that I am the only one that feels that way.
I don't comment a lot on ALR these days but I felt that must  this time.

David Price

[Dennis Glazener]

David,
I am humbled, thanks for the kind words, I appreciate your opinion. Just trying to follow in the foot steps of my Gillespie ancestors.
Thanks
Dennis

[mikeo]

David,  you are not the "only one" that likes it, I'm with you.

Mike

[longcruise]

I think it's got a certain attractiveness to it.

Put it on gunbroker as is and it might end up in the hands of someone who likes the look.  It's certainly a nice build regardless of the finish.

I used fishings alcohol based dye on several maple bow risers and they faded badly over time.  Could have been due to the nature of the final finish but I don't remember what it was.

[thecapgunkid]

I don't even use the stuff on the  shoes  I make.  If the leather isn't tanned right or was hard to ..."read"... before beginning work you can actually see little crystals that look like sequence forming when the work gets dyed.  Wood can have its own personality just the way leather can.

Part of it is whether you used their oil based dye or their regular dye.  Oil based dye is better confined to leather...mostly...

Take a SCRAP  piece of  wood and try using the dye  to whisker on the first run, thinning it with some alcohol.  Go back to either water or alcohol or whatever you use for the second or third run. Then segment the piece and try some various browns and tans for your final color.  You'll be surprised at the effects, and even a cursory view of your talents shows that you will master the touchy-feely part of making a pleasing color.

You have a lot of good advice in this thread, and, in spite of your reticence, the gun is very good looking.

Lastly, I just built a small smoothbore out of excess or scrap parts.  I found  the best application for any black dye at all was to highlight repairs on the stock because two years ago I botched a lot of work on one of my first builds, tore it down and used other parts to re-make it into this piece.

What I learned was that, if applied sparingly and later over browned after whiskering, I got an antique look that I did not expect.  You can see the coffee stirrer patch jobs on the wood, but they blend into a sort of character look with a thinned black base and a dark brown... like the gun has been through a war....

Folks at the range ask me if it is an original, which is a little embarrassing in spite of the fact that it shoots well.

Depending on how well it photographs, I may do a post on it and then run the gauntlet of all the expert comments.

Judging by your photo's, you do good work and the gun may not be as bad looking as you think.

Um Juss Sayn...
fuggedaboudit

[Mad Monk]

Some points on dyes.

When you look at the various dyes being used keep in mind that the cheap analine dyes have very poor resistance to UV fading.  The yellows, orange and reds are the most "fugitive" and bleach out fairly quickly.

One of the benefits of the Laurel Mountain Forge dyes is that they are the expensive "mettalized" dyes that have extreme resistance to UV fading.  These dyes have a chrome atom attached that gives them a great degree of resistance ti UV light.  I have seen Fiebings bleach out of a curly maple stock in 3 years on a gun that spent 99 % of its time indoors in a gun rack.  The side of the stock facing a window in the room bleached out in three years.  Leaving only the brown and black dyes intact.

[Mad Monk]

I don't even use the stuff on the  shoes  I make.  If the leather isn't tanned right or was hard to ..."read"... before beginning work you can actually see little crystals that look like sequence forming when the work gets dyed.  Wood can have its own personality just the way leather can.

Um Juss Sayn...
fuggedaboudit

"you can actually see little crystals that look like sequence forming when the work gets dyed."

I spent several years in a plant that produced organic textile and paper dyes.  Worked process control and QC.  If you look at these various organic dyes under a strong microscope you see clear colorless crystals that look like minute snow flakes.  How they reflect light determines what color we will see them as.  Each type of dye forms a specific crystal shape that reflects light in a specific way.  Different shaped crystals will reflect different wave lengths of light.  That is the simple explanation of the basics in the organic dye colors.  But your observation of the crystal formation is accurate.

I also put a bunch of years in synthetic polymers where we used both mineral pigments and oil-soluble dyes to color goods and test them for UV resistance in carbon arc fadeometers.

[gusd]

Hate to admit it but I like it!!
gus

[Thawk]

I expect this rifle to banned in Cali they don't like black rifles out there.  I love the work and the wood looks like a beautiful piece but the color does not do anything for me.