Finish an in the white canoe gun?

[William]

Jackie Brown will be shipping a 20 gauge smooth bore "canoe gun" to me tomorrow. Here are the details;

Cherry stock, which I want to turn a deep red like a cherry dining room table and what to do with the metal? What finishing supplies, sandpaper, Emory cloth, cold blue/vinegar/plum brown solutions are needed?Suggestions?

[William]

Additional pic.

[old salt]

The sock will need some sanding, if it is like the ones I have finished. I would start with 80 or 100 grit and keep working up. I personally like hand sanding.

I think my like for hand sanding comes from my High School shop class, and I can get a better feel for the wood. As for the mettle start with heavy emery  cloth or even fine files

Just the way I would do it.Other way better Ideas

[William]

The stock will need some sanding, if it is like the ones I have finished. I would start with 80 or 100 grit and keep working up. I personally like hand sanding.

I think my like for hand sanding comes from my High School shop class, and I can get a better feel for the wood. As for the mettle start with heavy emery  cloth or even fine files

Just the way I would do it.Other way better Ideas

Interesting that you mention shop class as that is what I was thinking about in conjunction with the stock finishing. I wish that was still around too, as one of my teachers welcomed former students back on weekends as long as you signed a liability waiver and paid for your own materials. If you're under 25 you probably don't even know the school ever even had a shop class. But I digress......
Anyway, after sanding the stock down to 150 or maybe 180 grit I want to apply something that will accelerate the cherry wood's natural darkening over time to a deep red brown. Aqua Fortis requires heat which I don't have the equipment to do but I seem to recall that cherry needs to be treated with a strong base PH and not an acid like AF. Am I correct in that or not?

[Dogshirt]

Members of a forum that I no longer belong to talked about using oven cleaner that contained lye to bring out the red of cherry.
I would do a bit of research, but they all talked as if it was a common treatment. You might get a scrap of cherry from a cabinet shop and try it on that.

http://wordsnwood.com/2013/lye/

http://forums.finewoodworking.com/fine-woodworking-knots/finishing/staining-cherry-lye

http://lumberjocks.com/alindobra/blog/20036

[William]

Eureka! That's exactly what I was remembering; sodium hydroxide!

Fascinating links too, thank you so much.

[William]

New gun arrived yesterday, pix;

[William]

More

[William]

Last ones

[Red Badger]

Remember no sanding in the livingroom!  - Have fun with this project and remember range reports are a must.... even if I have to drive out there to take you to the range.... Better yet you two come up here for a week and stay in the Travel Trailer while we test it.

Jim

[Winter Hawk]

I'm very interested how that turns out.  I've seen some folks really like Jackie's guns and others who are a lot less charitable so I'm looking forward to seeing what your impressions are, once you have it completed and are shooting it.

~WH~

[William]

Okay, an update with pictures soon.  With the help of a friend I got the pins out and stock separated from the barrel.  Jackie glass bedded the tang and did a pretty good job carving the stock.  However, in the lock area the wood became a bit thin and I will need to glue a chip back in place.  More for aesthetics and not structural but for me, necessary.  The stock is nearly ready to be finished and another friend gave me a red stain plus a jar of boiled linseed oil to do that with.  The lye solution to turn the cherry more reddish is still a possibility too, it just depends on how the stain does.
Also, one of the (word needed) that the pin goes through came out and will need to be soldered back in.  It is very near the lock area and is probably not needed so I am debating on whether or not to have it done.  My friend gave me a roll of emery paper and I've sanded the barrel to a nice in the white finish, with the spots of surface rust completely eliminated. I may have the barrel finished at the same time as the (? ) is soldered back in place.  If I go that route then I will have the butt plate and trigger guard done the same way.  If I decide to do the finish at home then it will either be a cold blue or vinegar for a French gray finish.

[hotfxr]

When it comes to stock finishes I absolutely love Sutherland Wells polymerized tung oil and their cherry stain. Gives it that perfect brown tinted red look. The company is out on the other coast somewhere, Virginia or West (by God) Virginia, it doesn't matter, there is no civilization West of the Rockies anyway. Only mail order but they send me the product and bill me later.

[Winter Hawk]

I just blued a smoothbore barrel I had made for my T-C PA Hunter, by Bobby Hoyt.  I used Laurel Mountain Forge Degreaser/Browning Solution, following their directions to get a blue rather than brown finish.  I sanded it down, starting with 100 grit and ending with 440 grit, probably should have spent more time on that and gone down to 600 grit, but it looks good enough for this boy.  The only problem I ended up with is that the edges of the flats didn't get as dark as the rest; probably from the carding operation using denim.

~WH~

[hotfxr]

Winter Hawk, I happen to like that slightly worn look. As pretty as some of our firearms are, brand new looking should not be in our lexicon. We can just call it "Pre stressed" and charge folks for us showing them how to do it. Seriously though, I have taken steel wool to a couple of my barrels now. They were just too shiny for flintlocks.