Art Holley green stocked rifle

[Michigan Flinter]

 I have a Art Holley rifle that has only been shot to get it sighted in back in the 60's (I believe ).It has a green tinted stock that I would like to make it a brown tinted . WHAT EVER HE USED ON THE STOCK WAS NEVER NENTRALIZED SO OVER THE YEARS IT CHANGED COLORS. I NEEDE SOME SUGGESTIONS ON HOW I SHOULD GO ABOUT DOING THIS. Thanks FOR YOUR HELP.

[David Rase]

Good old Chromium Trioxide.  Turns green every time.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Your rifle was stained with Chromium Trioxide...a popular stain for maple back in the third quarter of the twentieth century.  UV fades it badly, and turns it green.

Scrape (gently) the stock and remove all old finish, and the green stained wood.  Finish the wood to your liking, and stain with Ferric Nitrate solution.  Blush the dried FN with a heat gun and it will turn from grey/green to red/brown.  Burnish the stock, and apply your favourite stock oil/finish.  That's what I'd do, anyway.

[little joe]

 I have encountered the same problem and I removed the finish sanded a little and applied magic maple, turned out good.

[Majorjoel]

Hi Eric,
            I have an old half stock rifle in my herd that also has the green chromium trioxide finish. 

Because the gun has no fancy carving or inlays, I plan to use a good chemical stripper to remove the old finish. I most probably will have to also do a bit of sanding on the wood after the finish is gone to rid the stock of the green stain that penetrated into the wood.

I have used "Strip Ease" in the past on a few production guns that I have refinished and it made the work a lot easier than scraping.

If your Holley rifle is one of his plainer ones, I would go this route.  If it is one of Art's fancier works, I would probably leave it as is.   I consider Art Holley guns to be quite collectable!   

[Dennis Glazener]

I have encountered the same problem and I removed the finish sanded a little and applied magic maple, turned out good.

I may be wrong but doesn't Maple Magic also turn green over time?
Dennis

[Joe S.]

Darn shame,seen a real nicely carved rifle,perfect inlets,flawless if it were not green.Would be a real project to fix that with all the carving.

[Ray Settanta]

I think Magic Maple is chromium trioxcide.

[stuart cee dub]

Absolutely ...Magic Maple stain does turn green .

I had to redo my Hawken which was stained with Magic maple as it turned to a kind of Mossy oak green .(If it were an inline I would have left it just sayin')

A quick fix is to just apply an aniline stain right to the varnish . I had a couple of powder horns that and bullet boards used Magic Maple stain on the wood and as an experiment I just stained the finish. Sure the green is still lurking underneath but it worked surprisingly well . My usual finish at that  time was a tung oil varnish.

If you are stripping finish by all means use a chemical stripper especially if there is carving or other fine finish work . 

 

[rich pierce]

I wish suppliers would stop selling that stuff or warn it will turn green.  Obviously if they know anything about building longrifles they know it turns green.

[Long John]

Michigan,

According to the CRC Handbook the green color is the result of the chromium reacting with the water in the wood and resulting in Cr₂O₃, chromium sesquioxide.  This compound is reported to be soluble in alkalai solutions.  You might want to try stripping the stock and then cleaning it with lye.  That might leach out the chromium oxides enough to diminish the green color chromium usually ends up imparting.  It might save you from scraping or sanding off the wood that has absorbed the stain.  Since chromic acid is a water-based stain, there might be some locations where it has penetrated quit deeply into the wood.  In that regard it behaves similar to iron nitrate or iron acetate (vinegaroon).  However, the iron compounds are color-fast and reliable!

"Magic Maple" stain is chromic acid.  Chromium oxide, CrO₃,  reacts with water to yield chromic acid.   Given enough time anything stained with that product will start turning green as the chromate radical reacts with the moisture in the wood.  In my view there is absolutely no justification for using chromic acid on wood when there are so many other stains out there that are reliable, easy to use and non-toxic.

And as a side note, ALL chromium compounds are potentially toxic.  Every chromium atom in the universe has the ability to become "hexavalent chromium".  Indeed, the chromium in chromium tri-oxide, CrO₃,  has a valence of six!

Best Regards,

JMC
John Cholin

[t.caster]

Eric, Jack Gee who apprenticed under Holly said he used Magic Maple and so did Jack. I built a matching set of dueling pistols while in the Guild (under Jack Gee), as were you, and I used MM on them. I won blue ribbons at Dixon's that year, but later they turned green. I NEVER used Magic Maple again! Last winter I carefully scraped & sanded the finish off and applied several LMF stains to my liking and refinished them. Very happy with the outcome!
Bring that rifle to our Sept. shoot so I can see it. One of our past members had an early Judd B. rifle that was very green too.

[little joe]

On Magic Maple , that is all I use and I have never had one turn green. Most likely used several bottles and no green. It is I think a nitric acid base.

[WadePatton]

Gunmaker John Anderson has a dandy of a green rifle.  He could have redone it a thousand times, but I think he keeps it that way to keep us younger fellows from forgetting the horror.  I need to go check in with him.

GAWD it's awful, and I'm not ever never making that mistake. (I have my own various other ones)   

[David Price]

Years ago someone brought a rifle to me that was quite green.  Someone else had built it and the owner was the second owner and he did not know what was used for the stain.  The rifle had a considerable amount of very nice carving on it.  Other than being green it was a beautiful rifle.

I stripped it with paint remover, keeping the remover wet and on the stock for about two hours, I then washed it down with alcohol and 0000 steel wool, being careful not to touch the carving with the steel wool.  The carving I scrubbed with a tooth brush very gently.  This process I did twice.  I let it thoroughly dry and applied oxalic acid.  The oxalic acid can be purchased at any good hardware store or paint supply store.  It comes in crystals and must be put in boiling water.  Apply it to the dry stock while it is boiling using a small clean paint brush.  It will do all the cleaning in the first thirty seconds.  Rinse it with clean hot water.  It will raise the grain so after it is thoroughly dry, sand it with very fine sand paper and it is ready to stain.  I used Birchwood Casey's  walnut stain and it came out perfect.  I saw the rifle ten years later and it looked as good as when it was just finished,

David Price

[Michigan Flinter]

Thanks everyone for your input I appreciate it very much . It is a nice rifle other than the color .Now just find the time to strip it. Eric D. Lau

[Clowdis]

Another stain I've seen turn a green shade and that was walnut hulls. The only way to get rid of it on the rifle is to sand all the color off and restain and finish with better products.

[Goo]

Sounds like camouflage without the effort to me

[Clark Badgett]

Sounds like camouflage without the effort to me

I guess that is a way to make a positive of the situation.

[ChesnutGW]

Gunmaker John Anderson has a dandy of a green rifle.  He could have redone it a thousand times, but I think he keeps it that way to keep us younger fellows from forgetting the horror.  I need to go check in with him.

GAWD it's awful, and I'm not ever never making that mistake. (I have my own various other ones) 

I know that I'm 3 years late to this thread lol. I'm John's apprentice and actually have that green monster on loan. It was his 100th rifle and it's a beast of a 58. To be honest, I love the thing. Its unique and shoots like a dream. You just have to be a moose to keep it held up in your shoulder lol. It does blend well in the woods as well

[Hungry Horse]

 Has anyone tried using wood bleach to remove the green color? I was just trying to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve a lot of sanding, or scraping.

 Hungry Horse

[Scota4570]

Green plus red makes brown.  Would using a red dye stain  (mahogany maybe?) disguise remaining green after prepping for new finish?

[bptactical]

Has anyone tried using wood bleach to remove the green color? I was just trying to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve a lot of sanding, or scraping.

 Hungry Horse

Oxalyic acid is wood bleach IIRC.

I have a pair of matched full stock .54 Sharon barreled rifles that both have the green tinge. I debate with myself every time I look at them whether or not to redo them and be rid of the green. Part of me says yes but the other part has me very reluctant to, they are a matched pair, one flint and one cap. I almost wonder if they werent a father-son project. The flint rifle has nice proportions and lines, the cap rifle is much less refined.
Or they were built to represent certain periods of time, the flint having a bit more grace and the cap to have a more utilitarian approach.

[WadePatton]

Gunmaker John Anderson has a dandy of a green rifle... I'm not ever never making that mistake. (I have my own various other ones) 

I know that I'm 3 years late to this thread lol. I'm John's apprentice and actually have that green monster on loan. It was his 100th rifle and it's a beast of a 58. To be honest, I love the thing. Its unique and shoots like a dream...

Well Hey ChesnutGW.  Tell John I'm hope to visit before the Summer is gone at least.

[DBoone]

Something else that you could try is oxalic acid.  Available online and places like home depot.  Pretty cheap. It has a color fading, bleaching effect on wood.  I used it once many years ago and I remember that it did a good job but can't remember if it was a gun or something else.

Would be good to test it somewhere on the stock first before doing the whole gun.

Might just be a variation of bleach, like Hungry Horse suggested.