Well, it hasn't been six months since we were challenged to post pics of the projects we responded with to Mike's question about everyone's upcoming projects but I didn't want to drag this one out until March. So here it is, my copy of a North Carolina contract rifle. L&R late English lock, 36" Green Mountain 15/16ths .54 cal. barrel. The trigger guard and butt plate came from Roger Sells. Thanks Roger. The stock is the softest piece of curly maple I've ever had the displeasure of working on. It fought me all the way, even with sharp tools. The color was achieved with one application of ferric chloride, heat blushed, with an overlay of Gale Lock "antique walnut" stain. My experience so far with ferric chloride is that, unlike ferric nitrate or AF, you get almost no red tones. On this stock the color was a little too much of a mud brown to my taste. The antique walnut gave it just the slightest hint of red, just enough to give the brown a little life. FC is tricky to work with; very easy to overheat to almost black. However, this can be used to advantage if you want the stock to have a vintage look by heating areas you want to be darker just a bit more. I also used the FC to "age" the metal parts.
Now to see if I can squeeze that Bucks County in before the six month deadline runs out.
