Boyds Garand Stock Help with Staining

Alfonso

Alfonso

CGN Regular
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Location
Okanagan
Hello,

I need advice on how to properly stain, treat a Boyds Garand stock which I purchased a while back. I applied tung oil but am not happy with the how light it is. I have applied three coats now. Is there a better way to stain these bare stocks to give a darker more authentic hue to them? Thanks.
 
Don`t laugh but I have had good results with shoe polish. I once told a fellow who`s father was an armorer in WW2 about it and he checked it out with him, and his father said that is exactly what they also used during the war due to shortages etc. So I guess it wasn`t that original of an idea but it works.

Not sure how it will work since you got oil on it already?
 
Now that oil has been soaked into the stock it should be removed to ensure that a stain will penetrate the wood. Minwax Antique Refinisher works well for this. You can follow up with laquer thinner.

There will be some residual tung oil left in the wood which will block the penetration of a water based stain. An oil based stain should penetrate OK. An alcohol based stain penetrates residual oils the best. Leather dyes are alcohol based and work well on used stocks. I like the Fiebings brand leather stains. They give a reddish hue and can be mixed with a black shoe dye to give a darker color. I'd recommend experimenting on some scrap wood to get the right color before applying stain to the stock.

You see all types of colors on military rifle stocks. A lot of the darker/redder ones get that way as a result of oils oxidizing in the wood. US MILSPEC Garand stocks were either walnut or birch and were not stained before tung oil was applied to them. Raw linseed oil was used to condition/refresh wooden stocks in service.
 
linseed oil gives a darker colour than tung oil, just give the tung oil some time to polymerize then apply some BLO over top. Its the right way to do it ;) I just used PRLO on my Boyds stock and it came out exactly how I wanted, nice and dark
 
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