Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing New product to waterproof a wood stock??

If I want to take my rifle scuba diving with me I'll get a synthetic stock and be done with it.

We use stabilized woods for knife handle material as knives typically see far more abuse that a rifle stock. Stabilizing them does add considerable weight. The wood or bone or whatever is submerged in a tank and a vacuum pulled to remove most of the air from the wood. When the vacuum is removed, the stabilizing agents (most of them very proprietary) is drawn deep into the wood and renders it quite impervious to water, blood etc.

I don't know how the process would work on a chunk of wood as thick as a gunstock and Walnut is considered the worst wood to stabilize and not widely used for knife handles. Interesting possibilities though!

I saw a bunch of those knife handle blanks at the ACGG show in Reno two years ago. Pretty amazing stuff.

I've had fantastic success using standard automotive three part spray finishes. If you request info you'll get it- namely the mix I use now can safely be thinned 50%. I was a bit gunshy when I read that so I mixed up some, sprayed some chunks and it stuck alright- sectioned wood shows even western broadleaf soaking in deeper than standard oil finish i.e. General Finishes Arm-r-seal.(without thinning)
The first coat will soak in like you brushed MEK on it- on porous woods like Claro it will soak in nearly 1/4" in spots. Make sure you let that thinned coat fully dry (whatever manufacture says) or you'll get vapor bubbles gasing off under the next coat. butt plate, morticing, etc, soak it down. Air brush it on until it quits taking it and starts to sag. Let it hang in your dry box for 20 minutes and use your finger to chase those sags out. 24 later, sand with 320, 60+ psi, spray another thinned coat.
I have yet to have blanks that started out 6-8% ever get higher after its finished- dont forget that weak spot the checkered areas!!!! Thin whatever you're using and really brush it in!!

That's one of the best protective finishes you can use on wood...and it's also very good looking.

Paul Dressel swears by it...and Paul knows more about wood and gunstocks than most people you'll run into.

Has anyone ever tried something called Nelsonite 15B02 or 30B02?

You can also use a top coat of oil mix rubbed in over the spray epoxy stuff. Its nearly impossible to tell, nothing, nothing does a gun proud like wood.
I wont mention the stocker (flintlocks) who does this on those 2K stocks. Its a small cottage industry, stockmaking.

That sounds like the same basics behind treating wood power poles: pull a vacuum for so long, then put treatment into the wood with pressure for so long, then pull a vacuum again to retrieve the excess treatment, so you're just leaving a treatment coating (not filling) on the wood cell walls. Where I worked, the requirement was to do this to a depth of up to 85% of the sapwood or 1 1/2"---whichever was greater. There was a pounds-of-treatment-per-pole factor in there, too, but I forget what it was.
I always thought this would in principle be a great way to treat gunstocks, and now I read above that it has been used...so much for it being my idea!

BB
Gunstocks should not need a pesticide treatment. Wood only rots in a narrow range of moisture content centered around 25% MC or so. Dry wood does not rot and few bugs can/will touch it. Most stockis are walnut, also, and it has its own pesticide, juglanase. Fungus is responsible for the vast majority of wood rot...

Poles usually get either pentachlorophenol or arsenic treatment under pressure. Neither would help a stock.
art

You know that they use formaldehyde in making laminate gunstocks?
Stuff is very nasty when you sand laminates- regular paper mask doesnt cut it. You do wear a mask even when sanding laminates...right?

Some of the Marine Spar Varnishes contain a fungicide (as do most house paints)...but so what? Unless you are chewing on your gun stock or eating your house I'm not sure what the big fuss over "cides" is all about.

Allot of woods are toxic all by themselves, and the stuff in synthetic stocks shouldn't be ingested or inhaled either...nor should the gas you put in your car or the stuff you spray on your feet for athletes foot!

WOW!!!

This got way out of hand! Let me spell this out for the thought-challenged.

The product that started this is a delivery system for -cides.

Gunstock woods generally do not require -cides.

The product adds weight while delivering the -cides.

There are many products that seal, harden, finish or somehow enhance stock woods.

They make more sense.

Spent more than a little time studying wood and more than a little of that time was spent in labs. Generally studied the effects of water on wood. Lots of folks think I know a little about those properties of wood related to moisture.

If anyone cares to debate those points I am your muffin.
art

Well, excuse me your Holiness!

How utterly foolish and rude it was of me to question anything said by the self-proclaimed world expert in the field of wood and wood finishes.

The product that started this thread, which I have used, is an epoxy wood sealer...nothing more, nothing less. The entire product, including the box and the two plastic bottles, weighs less than 6 oz.

It is not a wood finish, nor should it be used as such.

Sitka; I'm aware of penta being a very poor choice for a gunstock application . Like you pointed out it wouldn't be necessary, and besides, it would burn your cheek---bad stuff on the skin! I was just thinking of the procedure used on poles and how that procedure ---with different products for different purposes --- could work on gunstocks.
The added weight thing is addressed by pulling a vacuum on the wood (poles) after the treatment has been put into the wood under pressure. Also by doing that, you don't waste treatment by leaving more than is needed inside the wood cells. But, maybe an epoxy waterproofing would serve its purpose better by being left in the cells, rather than drawn out at the end...I don't know.
Anyway, yes; apples and oranges on the two products involved. Just mentioning a neat way to get treatment into wood..for whatever application.

Bulletbutt:

Wood stabilizers use the same principal as you describe, but they use a different solution.

I don't know what commercial stabilizers use, that seems to be a closely guarded secret, but some people doing it at home use a product called Resinol, some use Minwax Wood Hardener, others use liquid plexaglas, and a lot of other stuff.

It works pretty good on knife scales and wooden pen blanks, but I don't know if the penetration would be deep enough on a gunstock.

Also, from what I've read, walnut is not a good choice for stabilizing. Something to do with the natural oils, I think.

Does anyone know what the commercial stabilizers use?

Rick
I am at a loss to source your attitude. Suspect you view me as a large fish in this small pond and you seek similar recognition. The better method for you might include offering something of value first, but if you want to question any information I have posted here... and there is plenty in the archives... just let me know...

You picked a lousy attack point as I see it; Noise without substance.
Have a great day.
art

1234567
Walnut is a poor stablizing choice because it is relatively close-pored, fine-grained and dense. All sorts of things are in walnut which slow liquids moving in the wood. Gums, resins, sugars (xylose predominately), xanthines and waxes top the list of substances in the cells and pores. Structures like tyloses impinge on liquid flows also.

A perfect example is the difference between white oak and red oak. WHite oak makes great barrels for aging wine. Red oak barrels would never plug. They look to be the same density and the pores are about the same size... White oak plugs its holes.
art

Boy, it's pretty clear why you chose Alaska for home. I doubt your ego would fit into any of the smaller states.

Please...I'm dying to hear this one...tell me why in the world would I, or anyone else, would view you as a "large fish in a small pond?"

Many of us on this thread have mentioned products and processes for sealing and finishing wood and you have pooh-poohed them all...but I see not one instance where Sir Holiness has offered a better product or process.

You have offered nothing to this thread except to tell all the rest of us how uninformed we are.

This company offers stabilized English Walnut so I bet they could give you answers on this.

http://uniquewoodworld.com/index.ph...p;zenid=9794be516577d3b2b275339309f13945

And this is the guy that was at the ACGG show in Reno displaying stabilized wood samples.

Jim Fray (Wildwoods)

(419) 866-0435

RickB, I think you're spending too much time in the tanning booth