Need advice faux striping

[stewart.leach]

What with being confined to the house- I'm in the at risk groups- I have progressed steadily in putting together a southern mountain -type rifle, in the plainest piece of maple I have ever seen. That's on purpose, I asked for plain wood with an eye toward trying faux striping such as Leman used on some rifles.

I believe I was told Leman or his crew used India ink for striping. I am considering using a dark stain, maybe walnut or maple for the stripes, and an overall stain of honey maple.

A second thought was to apply stripe stain full strength, then kind of feather in along the edges with half strength of the same stain on a fairly dry brush.

What experiences can you share?

Thank you!

 

[Flintandsteel]

The stripes need to be done with ink. Stain will blend and fade when you stain it over all.

 

[brazosland]

Ink. I have an antique rifle that was done with ink originally and you absolutely can’t tell it’s not real.

 

[mooman76]

I tried a black marker once. At a distance it looks good but up close you can tell. I thought I could use paint and then sand it enough to feather the lines but that didn't work out. Some people have wrapped the stock with rope and burned the wood. I have a really old one that was done that way. Looks good too but the stock is really aged and I don't know how it looked when new.

 

[Zonie]

The artificial striping done by Leman was done with ink as many of you suggested. Many of the people who have studied these guns think Lyman's workers used a brush with 7 small tufts of short bristles to apply the stripes because the width and spacing seems to repeat.

These painted on stripes look good from a distance but up close they don't look anything like the real curl that curly wood has.
Because the curl in real curly wood consists of end grain exposed on the surface, it's appearance is different as you look at the stripes at different angles.
In fact, a very curly stock can almost look like it doesn't have any curl at all when viewed at a steep angle from the front or rear of the gun, but as you move to a position where you are looking more directly at the side of the stock the stripes will stand out bold and proud.

 

[dragnetbill]

What with being confined to the house- I'm in the at risk groups- I have progressed steadily in putting together a southern mountain -type rifle, in the plainest piece of maple I have ever seen. That's on purpose, I asked for plain wood with an eye toward trying faux striping such as Leman used on some rifles.

I believe I was told Leman or his crew used India ink for striping. I am considering using a dark stain, maybe walnut or maple for the stripes, and an overall stain of honey maple.

A second thought was to apply stripe stain full strength, then kind of feather in along the edges with half strength of the same stain on a fairly dry brush.

What experiences can you share?

Thank you!

I have done a couple of CVA re-dos (beech stocks) in a Leman style using leather dye. I have used Cordovan for the stripes because it is dark and I already had some. I took a cheap 1 1/2" bristle brush and cut the bristles short (probably a 1/4" from the metal band) and then cut in gaps to create varying width teeth in the bristles (I hope this makes sense). Practice on some scrap first as it is easy to get too much or too little dye in the bristles. Sorry I can't post any photos since I sold both of the rifles that I have done this to.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

Scroll down to find instructions.

https://www.jsbrookslongrifles.com/theclassroom.htm