I got my hands on a great shooter M1 Garand. It's a CMP service grade that's mostly HRA. What's not HRA is SA. It has a sharp and shiny bore that checks 0+ at the muzzle and 1+ at the throat. The only thing I don't like about it, is it came out of CMP with one of their birch new production stocks and it had that horrid
ORANGE colored stain. Blechhh... So it had to go.
I have worked with wood on various projects over the years and am normally pretty good with it, but having never worked with birch in my life I went out and bought a piece of birch plywood to mess with.
I wanted an original military oil finish, that much I knew, but didn't have a clue on how to get the color of stain right. I ended up liking two things. 100% pure tung was going to be the one but when I tried it under the rear handguard, of course it wasn't even close to my test piece. So I ended up using Watco Danish oil in dark walnut with some tung oil based stain to give it some red to get a richer look. I had the color tint I wanted but thought it was just "too much" color, so I cut the Watco down with pure tung and mineral spirits. Got the color nailed down, so out comes the stripper.
Stripper on and working:
Stripper off, wood dried and ready for sanding:
Ironically, I didn't remember to get some pics of the stock after sanding, but most of the color came out. Now thinking that the stain was nailed down I brushed it on and kept it wet for a good 1.5 hours or so. It wasn't going to absorb any more finish at all, so I wiped it off. Huge disappointment! The birch just wasn't going to accept an oil stain evenly. So I let it dry real good and figured I'd have to strip it again and try something else. But I thought before I do that, I ought to get some Fiebings leather dye and see what happens. After all I was planning on stripping it again anyway. The dye worked like a champ. Again I "practiced" on my plywood to see how to work the stuff and what would happen. So I went on to the stock and got it looking pretty good. I let that dry and started in with a coat of pure tung. Wow! The color changes a good bit with oil on it. Wish I'd have went another coat on the dye now. But it's still pretty nice just not exactly as brown as I was wanting.
First coat of tung applied and drying:
So I put on 4 good coats of pure tung oil and wasn't getting any sheen at all and no build. So I switched to BLO. I thought that would be better since it will darken up with time. I put on 6, 7 or 8 (lost track) coats over the next couple of weeks and got it looking pretty nice. Let it dry for a good week and hit it with two heavy coats of gunny paste. I think I'm gonna name her Chameleon because it seems to be a different color every time I open up the safe!
Finished:
For those that want to know what I used, it was a stain concoction that was pretty much just Watco Danish Oil which is linseed based in dark walnut color, added a touch of Cabot gunstock colored stain just to soften the brown and give it a "richer" color and then cut this mixture about 25% with a mixture of tung oil and mineral spirits mixed 1:1. If I ever do another birch stock I'll just go straight to the Fiebing's leather dye. I may do it on all future projects, because I just love the way it works and you can mix colors to get whatever you want.
I used the Fiebings alcohol based leather dye in medium brown over the oil stain concoction and saved the whole thing from being stripped again.
4 coats of 100% pure tung oil from Real Milk Paint company.
At least 6 coats of boiled linseed oil.
After the very first coat of oil I lightly worked it over with 0000 steel wool before rubbing in the next coat of oil.
And finally 2 nice coats of Tom's 1/3 mix wax.
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