stock finishes

[c deperro]

 The article on Mr Guslers latest rifle Wallace states he used Asphaltum and linseed oil. Does anyone know where Asphaltum can be purchased.

[fahnenschmied]

You can get it where artists paints are sold.  Or buy it from an online art supply or Amazon.  http://www.jamescgroves.com/asphaltum.htm

[Not English]

There's a place in Utah that mines it. I bought a couple of small jars from them. A little goes along ways. I don't remember the name off hand but I found them through Google.

[dogcatcher]

This may be as far off base as can be, but from my "arteest" days, we used roofing tar diluted with mineral spirits. 

[bluenoser]

I have used roofing tar dissolved in turpentine to achieve a dark finish on maple and was very pleased with the result.

[Frank]

If you are trying to achieve a darkened or aged finish, why don't you use bone black or maybe black rustoleum like Mike Brooks.

[Hungry Horse]

 Linseed oil finish isn’t just linseed oil by the way, and without some additives it isn’t weather proof.

  Hungry Horse

[Mad Monk]

There's a place in Utah that mines it. I bought a couple of small jars from them. A little goes along ways. I don't remember the name off hand but I found them through Google.

The asphalt out of Utah is known s Gilsonite.  Used to be commonly seen in hardware stores for patching roofs.  It stated to be pulled from the market since it is a noted cancer causing agent but then a lot of asphalts are noted for that.

[Eric Kettenburg]

I still have a pretty hefty pile of gilsonite that Bill gave me years ago.  Thus far, it is the only 'asphaltum' that I've worked into an oil that acts transparent as opposed to a pigment.  Roofing tar, whatever it is, always acts like a pigment - it clogs up and enhances grain lines, which is not preferable (to my mind) on a gunstock.  Gilsonite, when heated into boiling oil, does not do this.  It acts more like a transparent dye, and the material itself initially is the same hard consistency of a tree resin.

Coal tar seems to create the same pigmentation issues.  Muddies up the grain.

Pine tar as sold in Agways and other comparable stores will work well insofar as darkening oil without excessive pigmentation, but it's pine resin based without the enhanced purification that hard conifer resins go through and there is no way to render it as a hard finish.  It's sticky and gummy.

[WadePatton]

I still have a pretty hefty pile of gilsonite that Bill gave me years ago...

That's a bit of gold on the black stuff. Thanks Eric.

[Mad Monk]

I still have a pretty hefty pile of gilsonite that Bill gave me years ago...

That's a bit of gold on the black stuff. Thanks Eric.

I was buying old original BP cartridges at gun shows and pulling the powder charges.  Then put the cartridges back together again. The sent them off the a collector in Utah.  Little did I know at the time he lived not to far from the original Gilsonite mine that had been shut down.  I had written to him about my stain and finish work and I had some questions on the Gilsonite.  A week later a 5 gallon bucket of it shows up at from door in a USP truck.  As I got out of the finish work I passed it on to Eric at a gunmaker's Fair.

At that time I was talking to Kit Ravenshear.  He was working on Rev War muskets used on ships in the Royal Navy and French muskets used on their ships.  Their musket stocks were finished in asphalt for sea duty.

[Nordnecker]

I've never heard of gilsonite. I did try genuine kiln burnt pine tar and an old can of roofing tar mixed with mineral spirits and turpentine and a little bit of japan drier.  Neither of these worked in a way I would recomend for a gunstock, too gummy, too stinky, just plain wrong.

[Not English]

Gilsonite can still be purchased direct. It's also available in art supply stores that carry pigment supplies. I agree with Eric regarding transparency. It does not muddy the grain. I've also mixed it with neatsfoot oil for leather work. So far it darkens up buckskin thongs nicely.

Dave