I'll agree that misleading people is not a good thing, but to have you being the sole arbiter or what the right path is seems every bit as wrong. To borrow and modify a quote, "you may often be wrong, but you are never uncertain". As for any comment I made on Formby's, I don't remember being critical of its use. If so, and if it wasn't you that I was 'talking' to, I'd apologize. But, being as it IS you and you seem to be the most 'overly self-realized' person on this forum (apologies to Big Stick) and one of the most profane, I can't see the value in wasting an apology.

Now...back to steel wool. I'm 2.5 days into trying to make rust dots (aka freckles) show up on my gunstock. And yesterday, just to have some sort of control test on rusting, I put a common nail and a chunk of steel wool into the remaining salt water. At this time, in less than 24 hours, the nail is a good rusty red color, as is most of the steel wool. There is not the faintest sign of a rust spot on the gun stock. I took a bright light and a magnifying glass and I can't find the first rusty freckle. That leaves me with several possible conclusions. Perhaps the steel wool, in the presence of the paste wax, won't rust. Well, I used some of the same waxed up steel wool that I rubbed the stock with, and it rusted. Another possible conclusion is that just maybe steel wool didn't break off in mass quantities and get stuck in the wood pores and maybe my light rubbing of the stock with the steel wool didn't cause the surface of the finish to reach such high temperatures (as you said it would while calling me stupid for not knowing such an obvious thing) that it melted and trapped bits of steel wool.

Now I'm not inclined to make any sort of global statement that steel wool won't lead to rust on a gunstock, though you had no problem proclaiming that it would most certainly and without fail lead to rust dots on a stock. Well...in this one test, that didn't happen, and I actually tried to make it happen.

And, for the record, as a woodworker I have on hand all sorts of abrasives (Pumice and Rottenstone being among them). Even so, I use a lot of steel wool for this and that. It's a very useful light abrasive and it isn't like the use of 0000 steel wool is as bad as using a rusty salad fork on the stock.

Sitka, why didn't the stock freckle up? You promised that it would. Maybe somebody else will take up your burden and make a stock freckle. I quit trying, as of noon today, though I did leave salt crystals on the stock.