Forgot how “hairy” walnut is

[rich pierce]

Getting ready to put the finish an a walnut-stocked Fainot fowler. Man, those aren’t whiskers- they are bristles! This is a scraped finish and even with the most gentle scraper de-whiskering, the next grain raising results in a lot more whiskers.

For those who scrape, on wood like this do you do endless whiskering, or do you burnish before sealing, or what is your approach?

[jerrywh]

 It is my experience that one really can't whisker by scraping. The scraper just pushes the whiskers down. You can burnish but the whiskers will still be there. Burnishing pushes them down also.

[tallbear]

Rich

I've used a real real thin coat of seed-lac to solidify the whiskers before I scrape them off.Of course if you're going to stain the stock that needs to be kept in mind......

Mitch

[PPatch]

Rich I would put that first coat of finish on it, wipe off the excess then let it completely dry, then proceed with your finish after a light scraping. You might even break down and go over it with 320 grit before working those finishing coats.

I won't tell... 

dave

[Stophel]

Walnut grain NEVER stops raising.  You can do it over and over again until you're blue in the face, but it won't quit until there's finish on it. Just try to shave off the whiskers as best you can, and then start finishing.  With the first application of whatever you're filling the grain with, it will fuzz up some, but cut it off, and then with some finish in it, it should be pretty well done raising.

[Iktomi]

I've found a thin cut of shellac, 1, 1.5/lb to be good for taming persistent whiskers.

[rich pierce]

Thanks!  Will keep you posted.

[Mauser06]

Jerry, how do you recommend whiskering??   I've been scraping...my thought is that scraping shaves the whiskers off.. opposed to paper that will compress them and fill the grain with dust.


Maple is certainly different than walnut.  I haven't scraped walnut yet.   

I thought scraping did a good job on my last maple though.  Though I do use commercially made scrapers and a Veritas variable burnisher...the burnisher puts a real nice sharp bird on the scraper and it seems to actually cut wood.

[Gaeckle]

Recently, I finished up a trade gun, the stock being walnut. It was without a doubt the junkiest piece of wood I have ever worked on and it too was 'hairy'. I ended up aging it, but, I tried a procedure that I really wasn't sure would work. I figured if it didn't work, I could always re scrape it off and start all over.

What I did was I scraped, sanded in some areas, steel wooled in others and then I applied a heavy coat of shelac. When that dried I took that down with steel wool and stated to apply Wahkon Bay finishing oil, in very light coats. After about a week, it still looked bad, so I started to use a burnisher and that made it look better. I have to add that, at some point in time, I also used flat black paint, artist oil paint (black and umber) in the stock also. The artist paint was mixed into the oil and applied. For what it was worth, I think it came out okay, but the wood was really bad.

[Frank]

I use Chambers Traditional oil finish and wet sand with 400 grit paper.

[jerrywh]

 I whisker once by wetting the wood and letting it dry. Then whisker once with 400 grit wet and dry paper. A lot of sand paper is not as sharp as 3M. I always use 3M paper.  Then apply the stain. Then the sealer, Then I sand with true oil thinned 50% with paint thinner and I sand the gunk right into the pour of the wood to fill them. I let the gunk dry and then sand again the same way until the grain is filled. Then I finish with permalyn.  As far as PC goes they were sanding stocks and metal parts  in Europe 2 or thee hundred years ago. About 55 years ago I proved to myself I could make a gun with primitive tools. Since then I see no need to subject myself to that torture again.

[rich pierce]

Good advice. I seem to be heavy handed and sanding and steel wooling of finishes always seem to go bad for me. I lean toward mineral oil and rotten stone on a piece of leather for leveling a finish.

[T*O*F]

I seem to remember an old gunsmithing book that said to raise the grain and then burn off the fuzzies.  Then rub the stock down with handfuls of wood shavings.

[rich pierce]

I seem to remember an old gunsmithing book that said to raise the grain and then burn off the fuzzies.  Then rub the stock down with handfuls of wood shavings.

Ha, tempted to try while you try not to laugh!

[T*O*F]

Ha, tempted to try while you try not to laugh!

Rich,

Think about it for a bit......not as crazy as you might think.  I whiskered an old restoration years ago with a candle.  A propane torch with a flame spreader would work handily.  Didn't have any shavings handy, but it would have the effect of removing any residue and burnish the wood.

[rich pierce]

Ok Dave, game on. Not ready to blowtorch this stock but will do a test piece. I get wads of shaving using a spoke shave so that part is easy.

[jerrywh]

 I have also heard of staining a stock with horse manure and browning a barrel with urine.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I burnish with the frayed end of a big piece of manila rope tied tightly about 3/4" up from the end.  Just a big tooth brush sorta.

T.

[sespe]

In his gunmaking video Homer Dangler used a torch to whisker the stock.

[Dennis Glazener]

For what its worth, seems to work well for me (getting rid of the walnut whiskers).

Back in high school industrial arts class our teacher did his masters thesis (think that was what it was called) on different types of wood finishes. He had a bundle of 12" sq blocks of wood chained together with the "recipe" on the back. For finish of all open pore wood i.e. walnut, mahogany, oak etc he had to use a thin water based glue mixture (we used some type of powder/glue to make ours) and swab the wood with it, let dry overnight. This was to raise the grain and the dried glue made the whiskers stick up so they could be sanded off. Repeat this until no whiskers were raised. Then use a sealer then use a filler wiped on, let dry then wipe off cross grain and when grain was completely filled sand lightly then apply sealer again. Then finish using coats of varnish with each coat rubbed down with pumice/rotten stone. Of course this was, 57 years ago (seems like yesterday).

We had a neutral colored filler that we could add different colored stain to or even add brass powder. I used the brass on some walnut frames and it turned out great looking. Looked like a gold filler when finished.
Dennis

[jerrywh]

I know some guys in the American custom Gun makers guild and none of them use grain fillers anymore. They just sand the gunk into the pours and wipe across the grain. Most of them don't even use rotten stone anymore. They wipe the finish on with a very fine nylon stocking in one direction. This takes some experience to learn but it eliminates all the rubbing down with the rotten stone and finish sanding once you learn how to do it. Some of those guns sell for over $200,000.00 so it is not an inferior finish.  It is not a big secret but it is a trick to learn.

[JCKelly]

Them what likes old muskets prize those whiskers. A "prickly" stock means it has never been refinished. Doesn't show in this photo, but this  Massachusetts 1813 musket has nice prickly stuff on it.

Yeah, guess that might imply that walnut grain does indeed keep on raising for quite some time

[jerrywh]

Musket stocks were not finished in the same  manner that a fine sporting rifle might have been. They were probably never whiskered at all.