I have to spout a bit. I hate pine tar. Nasty, sticky gunk. There is no way, no how, I believe that any professional (key word there is professional) gunstocker would have used it in conjunction with a gunstock finish. Was it perhaps used in a 'frontier' context, on cheap hack pieces, on one-offs built by non-professionals? Maybe. Who can know, especially given the near-universal refinishing of practically everything that has survived. By and large, on the pieces I have examined which *seem* to be possessive of some form of original finish, nearly everything looks to have been stained with aquafortis. It's such a unique color and there is absolutely no means to obtain the same depth and clrity of color, let alone the particular color tone, with a pigmented or non-chemically derived stain. Pigmets only serve to cloud your grain unless - in the case of some fine artists oils - the pigments are ground to an excrutiatingly fine particle size. These art oils are what you see on some Lehigh area pieces with wild reds and oranges and yellow 'violin' varnishes. Spirit resins can also yield such vivid colors and also are seen on 19th century work but are quite fragile. On the light 'blonde' pieces (or pieces which may have originally been blonde) I do not believe pine tar plays any part in the color. A good lead-boiled oil can color the white maple a beautiful light amber color by itself: I proved this two years ago at the Gunmakers' Fair during a seminar wherein I 'stained' plain and curly sugar maple pieces with historically-influenced linseed oil. It was actually darker than Wallace's pine tar/oil. If some form of coniferous resins were utilized in conjunction with the oils, and I'm sure many were especially given their easy availabilty throughout the 18th century via imports, the key word here is 'resin.' Crude pine tar is very unrefined and possessive of many of the aforementioned hydrocarbons and 'tars' and pinenes which, through age and refinement, can evaporate or otherwise be driven off to yield harder, more useful resins. Venetian turpentine, for example, was historically derived from the Euro larch and was sold not as the gloppy gunky $#@* you buy at most art supplies today (most of them being synthetic anyway) but was described as being near-crystalline and deep burgundy in color. A fine resin to be heated and boiled into linseed oil. Copals can be run at high temp and combined w/ boiling oil. Many other resins can also, all which can influence color tone and durability and will NOT retain the sticky characteristics of crude pine tar. The so-called problems anticipated by using aquafortis in conjucntion with fine carving are largely rendered minimal by the use of extremely charp tools and avoiding abrasives such as sandpaper at all cost PRIOR to applying initial sealing coats. RCA42 is aquafortis stained isn't it? I think that qualifies as fine carving! That dude didn't seem to have a problem using it. The use of tea is a very good notion as tannic acid in varying forms by itself will darken the shade of the wood, and in conjunction with aquafortis (subsequent wash coats) will accentuate and darken the curl and color. Now don;t get all huffy and interpret this as an attack on anyone. I don;t care what anyone uses to finish their stock. I just really, really hate pine tar.
