Raising grain with alcohol

[Ray Settanta]

I read in another thread that some people use alcohol to raise the grain. I thought that alcohol-based dyes were used sometimes so as to not raise the grain. As far as I know all store-bought alcohol contains water, some as much as 30%. I use alcohol for some applications that only contains about 1% water. So, if it's the water in the alcohol that raises the grain, why not just use water? What's the benefit in using alcohol?

[T*O*F]

What's the benefit in using alcohol?

It's not necessarily for raising the grain.
It removes residual oils and garbola from the stock.
It makes the grain pop better, showing imperfections more readily.
It dries quicker than water.

I have a dedicated pad for its application.  It has a small amount of alcohol based stain on it, which is activated when wetted with alcohol.  The residual stain is what shows the imperfections.  After several applications thruout the build, the grain is raised and removed as part of the build process.  The pad can also be used to blend or removed stain as desired during aging.

[SingleMalt]

I tried it with isopropyl alcohol (70%) and it worked pretty good.  However, because of the evaporation rate, it takes a lot to raise the grain on a rifle from first application to job done.  I've had better results cutting the alcohol with water, about 50/50 and using it that way.