Not sure we have a wood forum and maybe this should be in the gun forum, but thought I would get more useless replies here. 
I ventured into my first use of water soluble wood stain. I'm converting a Saiga 7.62x39 to an "AK-47" (legally). I have all the parts ready to go. Pretty fun project for stress relief. The gun is all torn down, plastic stocks removed. I bought bare Birch furniture (yeah I didn't spring for the Walnut, etc). The plan: Stain the wood dark reddish communist wine/blood red , with a faux aged and handled look, hand rubbed with Mil Ox oil (which acts like a typical setting seed oil rub) for gun stocks. Well I must say, I have achieved the look pretty well.
Birch is not the best wood to stain. It does not take most stains evenly. And the end cuts really soak the stain in and go quite dark. But this helped the effect - I think purely by accident. I had to sand the wood, then raise the grain with water and sand again - three times. That part really paid off. No raised fibers at all.
The water soluble stains are a nasty aniline powder first dissolved in 8 oz methanol, then 24 oz of warm pure water. I mixed my own using most Behlen brand red and other secret colors. Man the stain is a strong dye. Powerful. Brush it in rub it off. Repeat. Scary at first. Looks almost magenta. Anyway, after drying well then rubbing down and burnish polishing with cheese cloth it looked really cool.
Last night I oiled it and rubbed the oil while watching James Bond do a Stephen King TV movie.
Here's the problem: when I was hand rubbing the oil to get it to polymerize, the brighter red was getting on my hands! Yikes. Not like a bunch, just like some surface stain was rubbing off and mixing in the oil - this morning still some color rubs off on a paper towel. The oil will take some days to cure fully, so I'll give it time. I was going to treat it with more oil, maybe twice more. Then wax it.
Anyone have some tips - will the dye continue to rub off???
I ventured into my first use of water soluble wood stain. I'm converting a Saiga 7.62x39 to an "AK-47" (legally). I have all the parts ready to go. Pretty fun project for stress relief. The gun is all torn down, plastic stocks removed. I bought bare Birch furniture (yeah I didn't spring for the Walnut, etc). The plan: Stain the wood dark reddish communist wine/blood red , with a faux aged and handled look, hand rubbed with Mil Ox oil (which acts like a typical setting seed oil rub) for gun stocks. Well I must say, I have achieved the look pretty well.
Birch is not the best wood to stain. It does not take most stains evenly. And the end cuts really soak the stain in and go quite dark. But this helped the effect - I think purely by accident. I had to sand the wood, then raise the grain with water and sand again - three times. That part really paid off. No raised fibers at all.
The water soluble stains are a nasty aniline powder first dissolved in 8 oz methanol, then 24 oz of warm pure water. I mixed my own using most Behlen brand red and other secret colors. Man the stain is a strong dye. Powerful. Brush it in rub it off. Repeat. Scary at first. Looks almost magenta. Anyway, after drying well then rubbing down and burnish polishing with cheese cloth it looked really cool.
Last night I oiled it and rubbed the oil while watching James Bond do a Stephen King TV movie.
Here's the problem: when I was hand rubbing the oil to get it to polymerize, the brighter red was getting on my hands! Yikes. Not like a bunch, just like some surface stain was rubbing off and mixing in the oil - this morning still some color rubs off on a paper towel. The oil will take some days to cure fully, so I'll give it time. I was going to treat it with more oil, maybe twice more. Then wax it.
Anyone have some tips - will the dye continue to rub off???
