Stripping the finish of an Indian musket

[LeeinVA]

What is the best product to remove the crappy varnish found on my 1840 Potsdam? And what is the best stain once varnish has been removed.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I recommend using Acetone to strip the finish off the stock. Its available at your local paint, or hardware store, and a quart is more than enough to do one gun. Use some kind of flat container- a pie plate-to rest the stock in and catch the drippings.

Wear gloves and a styrofoam mask, to help you keep from breathing in the fumes. Do the stripping out of doors, on a day with a breeze, to blow the fumes away from you. Stay upwind.

Use a brush to lather on the acetone- it looks like water or alcohol--- and let it wash down over the length of the stock. As long as its still active, it will continue to strip finish off the stock until it reaches the butt of the stock in the pan. The Varnish and paint will flow off the wood, and the entire stock will be stripped in minutes. Wipe down the stock with a rag, and check it, to see if you missed anything, or find some varnish still buried in some coarse grain or a crack, or cut in the wood. Re-do the stripping if needed. Then give the stock a full day to dry. I like to wash the wood with soap and water to neutralize the acetone, and get it off the wood. Then the stock is rinsed thoroughly, wiped dry and put outside in the sun to dry completely.

As for stains, I favor using alcohol based stains. You can buy them from a number of suppliers, but which ones you use depends on what the wood is and what you want it to look like. Jim Klein sells great stains, as does Jim Chambers. Birchwood Casey offers a number of stains as well as its True Oil stock finish.

Test the stains on scraps of similar wood, or use the end grain on the butt, or in the barrel channel to see how they will look.

I like to thin Cherry stains with alcohol until I get an orange color. When applied and dried, you have a darker red stain in the deep pores of the growth rings.The stain there will help highlight the grain of the wood. I sand off that stain from the harder, wider surface wood, then coat the entire stock with a good walnut stain( or Teak if that is what you have and want to keep). The red stain in the pores still shows thru the walnut stain, nd makes the growth wood "Pop" out when under an oil finish.

I put on thin layers of diluted stain until I get the hue I want.

To know what its going to look like when a oil finish is put on the stain, just wipe the dried stained surface with a wet cloth, and look at the wet stock in natural light.

 

[LeeinVA]

I will stick with dark walnut.. Thank you so much Mr. Paul this 411 will be put to use soon. :thumbsup:

 

[ebiggs1]

I am not much a fan if acetone because it is so volatile. I guess it works or Mr.Vallandighan would not say so.
I use any of the commercial strippers available at home centers. They all work and some of the finishes some guns have a re so poor that they jump of the gun when you just open the can!.

 

[JohnN]

Since there is usually a lot of excess wood on the Indian muskets I just sanded it all off. The stuf on mine was more like a paint than a stain. After staining used a tung oil and mineral spirits mixture cutting down on the spirits with every coat.

 

[LeeinVA]

From what i can see throught the paint/varnish? The grain appears to be very nice. I will remove some of the wood and freshen up the edges.

 

[ebiggs1]

Be careful sanding around parts that "fit" something.