Make 100% sure you don't let your post die. I'm really looking forward to seeing the next step of your project.

I do have one question for you. Does the size of the current stock work for you? If not do you need to cut it or lengthen it? Now might be the time to do that.

Tom

Just curious but I have to ask. Why would you want to use a "dye" as opposed to a stain, oil finish or polyurethane. Ritz dye is generally sold as a cloth or material dye and IMO would produce results similar to ink. Before you hit the stock with a whole bunch of that I'd suggest trying it on something for a test.

Also since wood almost always darkens when you add any kind of liquid start with something lighter than you think you might want. You can always make wood darker but it is very difficult to make it lighter. If you start too dark you may end up with something nearly black.

Here`s mine......A walnut Boyd`s Blaster stock I got on sale. All the innards have been swapped out. Clerk 16.5" heavy bbl. Nice 3lb trigger pull now. Just shopping for a scope and sunshade now plus a few more coats of finish and she`s finished.


Ron

From what I learned about stain was that it is made so anyone can get an ok finish. The pigment used in stain is much larger than the pigment in dye, I was told that it's like comparing a golf ball to a pin head. Since the pigment in stain is so large it really doesn't color the wood, the pigments lay on top of the wood and the stain contains binders that "glue" the pigment in place. You can get even results with stain but it blocks the finer details in the wood. That's why on the factory finish you can barely see the grain in the stock of a 10/22. Dye on the other hand colors the wood without blocking the grain. I hope to have some pictures up by tomorrow. This morning I bought a sprayer and I mixed the dye with denatured alcohol. I mixed the dye half strength so it is lighter than I wanted. I sprayed the stock with the first coat and let it dry. Then I sanded the stock lightly with 220 grain wet or dry paper. This lightened the harder part of the grain while leaving the softer, more absorbent part of the grain darker. I wiped the stock down with a clean cloth then sprayed it with a second coat. The stock is now a warm medium brown with a slight reddish hue. When the dye was dry I wiped in a coat of Danish oil, it's a boiled linseed oil derivative that's thinned so that it soaks into the wood. It's going to need 15 to 20 coats to complete the process. This builds the finish from within the wood versus on top of the wood. With a finish like polyurethane it turns out hard and very protective, but you lose any depth to the wood grain finish. Depending on how I like the final result, I might opt to put a final layer of tung oil finish. This is not really tung oil but rather a varnish that is mixed with oils and thinner to create a varnish that penetrates like the danish oil but it leaves a semi-protective layer of varnish.

Here are a couple of pics that I just took after the first coat of danish oil was applied. Between coats of oil I'll be rubbing the stock with 0000 steel wool. Since the oil soaks in it locks in the dye that penetrates the deepest, the steel wool will help to even out the color of the finish since the oil is in the wood versus coating the wood like poly does.

Are you going to try to get the grain lines to go dark, like the picture that showed of what you're trying to get to?

Tom

Plans have evolved as I work on this project. The two tone color that I was hoping for sounds good in theory but it really isn't attainable. Everyone on here convinced me to scrap the black look because of the nice grain that this stock has. Since I took these pics an hour or so ago, I hand rubbed the stock with steel wool and applied another layer of oil. The steel wool is making the light lines lighter for a more pronounced grain. The other problem that I encountered with the dye is in places like the front and back sides of the pistol grip. With a wood like walnut its all just wood and finishes evenly, since the stock is made from birch the dye treats these areas like an end grain and they dye penetrates deeper, which gives it a darker color. The steel wool removes some of the dye which smoothes out the color and adds character. Overall I'm happy with the way it's turning out. The pictures that I posted don't do it justice, it's pretty neat looking while it's still wet and it's out in the sunlight. Only about twenty more coats of oil to go.

Learn something new everyday. I was curious and I get it now.
I just finished a gun stock for a friend done entirely in Linspeed oil. Following thorough instructions it turned out very nice as a highly figured walnut stock.

It took quite a while to finish since only one coat a day is all that you can do. It's so humid here that I had to do the finish work inside. I didn't like how the Danish oil was turning out, so I switched to Formsby's low gloss tung oil finish. It's still pretty shiny so I can't imagine what the high gloss looks like.

You did a great job,i wish my 10-22 stock looked half that good!