Rossi Rifleman

I used 3:1 Fiebing's dark brown to black ratio then cut it by 50% with rubbing alcohol for the re-do on the .454. Here is after color but before oil.

Just ran across the mixed excess. I labeled the ratio so I would remember.

2 parts LIGHT BROWN
1 part black
1 part rubbing alcohol

Fiebing's is alcohol based.

Reese-Mo wrote:Fiebings is good stuff. Ive used "buckskin" on many a mahogany guitar body, with nitro over it.

Im going to try and post pics when Im done, unless it turns out bad.
So far it is looking good.
Im looking through my junk pile for scrap buckskin, just had some out the other day, forgot where I put it.
Want to do a Buffalo carving on the buckskin and sew it to the leather butt cuff.

GasGuzzler wrote:I used 3:1 Fiebing's dark brown to black ratio then cut it by 50% with rubbing alcohol for the re-do on the .454. Here is after color but before oil.

Just ran across the mixed excess. I labeled the ratio so I would remember.

2 parts LIGHT BROWN
1 part black
1 part rubbing alcohol

Fiebing's is alcohol based.

Hey GG, can I copy and use your recipe?
I may use it on my next project.
I had to rub back the dark brown dye a bit to lighten it up.
Im trying to copy the finish on a WW2 M1 carbine/garand.

Sure. For the Garand color you might need a VERY small amount of red.

GasGuzzler wrote: Fiebing's is alcohol based.

In my experience, Fiebing's has two lines of dye. One comes in a quart bottle, and I think they call it "Pro-Dye" or something similar. That's what you want. That is alcohol based, and its ethyl alcohol (denatured), but rubbing alcohol, or even some Everclear (ahem....) will cut it a bit, and probably increase the penetration just a bit too. This dye is highly penetrative as it comes though.

The other Fiebing's dye I've used (not on bigger wood items) is a sort of gel/paste dye. I'm not sure of the name they call it, but it comes in a small 8oz jar, and is meant for brushing borders and backgrounds of tooled leather. It does not run very much, so it "stays in the lines". You don't want this dye.

I said "in my experience" because I'm not fully up to date on Fiebing's line of products, they may have more dyes.

One thing to stay clear of is any dye that is _not_ a "metalic dye". Other dyes, not may separate, in a process known as dichroic separation. Huh? Oh yeah. Some of Mohawk's dyes behave that way. I wanted to come up with a guitar that was a bit radical, and blue in color. I fetched up a Gibson "BFG" which is a "barely finished" Les Paul. It had thick, goopy black nitro on it. Literally, I stripped the hardware from the guitar, and washed the body and neck in lacquer thinner. Damn if it didn't have an AAAA maple top under all that rough goo. I was like... "what were they thinking?" to use that wood on a $600 guitar. Anyway, I got some Mohawk blue concentrate, mixed it with alcohol as per the directions, and dyed the top. Gorgeous whitish, blues and almost black flames in the maple. And that lasted for about three days. Then the blue began to turn, and it ended up being a teal color. Very nice, but.... not like I wanted. And that's when I learned about dichroic separation.

You can see the original, and separated colors, below. In the 2nd picture, there's a guitar with the same dye, similar type of maple top.
(and can you believe Gibson used that flame maple on a six hundred dollar lower than low end Les Paul?)

just my opinion, but dang .... those are butt ugly

yeah, I have discriminating tastes


jd

(no offense intended)

Blue either grabs ya or not. I never had an issue with Fiebing's, which ARE metallic dyes.

Dark browns can be tricky. Depending on the dye... There are cool browns and warm browns. Some almost are a purplish brown (Miroku for example). The ya always got the underlying wood to deal with.

I'll say one thing .... you do damn good work!


jd

I like the blue, not so much the final coloration.
That's some great grain.

A friend of mine picked up one of the Big Horn Armory model 89s several years ago. He had preordered the gun when it was in development and visited the factory picking out the wood to be put on the gun. Didn't quite work out that way as they apparently didn't reserve the wood somehow.

Meanwhile before they had really started filling orders Big Horn was approached by the yahoos at Gunsmoke Guns for a project they were doing on the American Guns TV show. Big Horn Armory provided one of their guns with excellent wood. The moron show proceeded to chop the gun into a 'mare's leg' configuration not only ruining the wood but they screwed it up (probably got it below the Fed minimum length requirements) and requested an additional stock. The end result was so screwed up that Big Horn requested their name NOT be used and the episode ran claiming to have modified a old production Winchester 1886 to produce the end result. I always wondered if my friend's premium chunk of wood wound up getting cut down by those morons.

You answered your own question, Archer: MORONS

You just can't really tell with wood. I've got Turkish Walnut on my CZ SxS 12g and its just plain as can be, but dark and even, tight grain. I've had two Red Label 12g guns, one was girl next door, the other a wood goddess. The BSA had a beech stock, pretty nice on the buttstock, ho hum on the fore end. On a production line, I can see someone picking out some "good pieces" for fancy grades. I guess they don't grab "all" the good stuff, just what they need for the fancy models, what they happen to see for the same, and that which looks like it would be nice. I'm sure the rest just goes into production. As an aside, I've ordered up some guitar bodies, one walnut topped one and one one solid maple one I can remember. No price premium, but AAAA wood on both. I think I could have ordered up some high grade wood, and gotten the exact same pieces, only at $150 or so premium each.

If I can ever get a .45 Colt R92 (one just slipped thru my fingers - yet again), I might consider a laminate if the wood is crappy.