# Staining Walnut Gunstocks



## HomeBody (Jun 8, 2016)

What? Stain walnut? Isn't that a sacrilege? Well no, it's actually traditional. Before I started working on stocks, I always like Winchesters because they had pretty wood. More of an "orangish" color. When I refinished my first Win. stock I was shocked at how it came out. The orange was gone. It was just plain old brown walnut like we get around here. I realized it had been stained, as all their two piece stocks were. They did it from the 1873 model on in an effort to match the two pieces of wood that went on the gun. Making 1000 or more units per day, you don't have time to separate wood and keep wood from the same tree together, so they stained.

I read up in old books on stain and found an early "orangish" stain used was iodine. If you remember iodine, merthiolate, or mercurochrome, you might remember the translucent fluorescent orange yellow color. Another early stain was alkanet root, which is red. I never found any of it. I bought my first useful orange/red stain from a supplier named Lowell Manley in the late 80's. When I opened the can, it looked just like iodine. By the time I tried to order more several years later, he had passed away. It took me several years to track down his supplier. It was Laurel Mtn. Forge in IN. They sell 5 flavors of stain, all named after trees. I use "maple" for walnut gunstocks. The stain has nothing to do with maple anything as far as I'm concerned but that's what it's called. Around $12 plus $8 shipped to your door. Once you use this stuff on your average walnut, you'll be hooked. After using the "maple", I think I'll buy the other 4 for other types of wood.

I've cut walnut locally since '85. The walnuts around here are usually one of two colors. Red, or brown. Way more brown trees than red ones. The red is nice as it is a richer reddish color and needs no stain. The brown is okay as it has all the figure but is just lacking in the warm red colors you like to see on a stock.

The first pic is a 1/2" scrap with the feather from the center of a crotch. This is our typical "brown" walnut.





Here it is with the stain applied with no finish. I soak it with a small folded up rag wearing rubber gloves then immediately rubbed all the excess off firmly with paper towels. If it puddles and dries it will leave a red streak.





Here it is with 2 coats of Sherwin Williams poly. You'll also notice the stain did a nice job on the sap wood in the lower right corner. This is the way I turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. 





The last pic is the scrap next to the bookmatched, ugly, rough looking, chain saw milled rifle blank it came off of. In a little over 5 yrs. drying time the one on the right might look like the one on the left. Gary

Reactions: Like 2 | Great Post 5 | Way Cool 4 | Informative 2


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## Mike1950 (Jun 8, 2016)

First stock I refinished was a 22. Remington if memory serves me right 511. all under Gramps supervision. WE used iodine to tint the filler.. Beautiful wood Gary.


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## Tony (Jun 8, 2016)

Ah, Monkey Blood, I remember it well. If I try hard, I can still feel the sting when you apply it! Tony

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## Nature Man (Jun 8, 2016)

Thanks for the tutorial. I would be interested in seeing pics of what your process looks like to fruition. Chuck


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## ripjack13 (Jun 8, 2016)

Iodine and baby oil suntan lotion. Lol. My Dad used that...
Instant tan...

That looks real Gary! I love the look of the stain, might have to pick some up just so I have some.


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## JohnF (Jun 8, 2016)

Thanks for the tutorial and all. I have a stock to do that I stripped the old finish off a couple months ago. I wanted to get that done before deer season.


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## robert flynt (Jun 8, 2016)

Got an old Savage 99E in 243 that needs a new stock.


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## Mike1950 (Jun 8, 2016)

robert flynt said:


> Got an old Savage 99E in 243 that needs a new stock.



I did a 250/3000 - There is a thread here. Probably was not the easiest stock design for me to start on......


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## DaveHawk (Jun 8, 2016)

They look to be top shelf grain stocks. 
Now i could faux a stock but the price would be a bit higher. Hehe

Reactions: EyeCandy! 2 | Way Cool 3


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## JohnF (Jun 8, 2016)

That's some great art Dave

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## LSCG (Jun 14, 2016)

looks great Gary. last year I had to refinish the forend of my dads 94 after repairing a crack and wound up getting some Tapadera's N-35 stain. it ended up matching the butt stock really well. I even used some to stain a threepersons holster I recently made lol.


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