Making Alkanet Oil

Virtually any English treatment of how to refinish gun stocks will refer to alkanet oil, also known as alkanet root oil, derived from the roots of Alkanna tinctoria (sometimes cited as Anchusa tinctoria or Lithospermum tinctorium).  If you're into making flintlocks, you can astound your friends by casually referring to alkanet root as Spanish Bugloss.

You can buy alkanet oil as part of a refinishing kit like Purdey's Warthog Finish (why warthogs were ever associated with gun stock finishes escapes me, but never mind:  the kit does perform as advertised).  This is probably the best route if you only plan to refinish one gun.  Or, you can make your own in whatever amount you want, as it keeps indefinitely in a sealed container.

Needed ingredients: 
     Alkanet root powder
     Boiled linseed oil (artist's quality, if you can find it)

When I bought my bag of alkanet root flakes from a herbal supply company ten or so years ago, it was only offered in flakes or roots, not in powder.  If that's all you can find, grind the flakes to powder in a small mill like a mill for coffee beans (you can get rid of most of the reddish stain by then grinding sugar or coarse salt in the mill).

Then add alkanet powder to the boiled linseed oil in the ratio of 1 Tablespoon of alkanet root powder to 1/4 Cup of linseed oil.  Shake or stir daily for a few days.  Heat will speed up the process, but stay away from direct heat, or you may torch your kitchen ceiling.  If it's hot enough to make sun tea, it's hot enough to make alkanet oil.  Finally, strain if needed.  Store in a tightly covered container.

Alkanet oil gives a reddish tone to walnut.  I use a coat or two, well rubbed in by hand, after coloring the stock with aniline dyes but before any sealer or finish coats.  It is additive, so more coats will slightly darken the wood.  (You could, of course, simply do an oil finish with the alkanet oil.)  After the finish is complete, I typically add a well rubbed in coat of alkanet oil and repeat periodically.

 

 

 

First-rate Writing: Nick Jans

First-rate Writing will be a series of posts quoting a passage by a given writer.  Some writers will be well-known; others in my opinion deserve to be better known.  Nick Jans published The Grizzly Maze (Plume, 2006), an excellent book on Timothy Treadwell, the guy who made the fatal mistake that he could relate to grizzlies.  His work also appears in Alaska magazine.

This passage is from Jans's earlier The Last Light Breaking (Alaska Northwest Books, 1993).  It describes what he thinks about when he looks at the remains of a moose killed by wolves in winter:

I spent more than an hour near the kill, circling as the wolves had done, reading their story in the snow, studying spots of blood, bits of hair.  The intertwined trails seemed graceful, as if the wolves and moose had danced together.  At the end of their dance lay the kill, beautiful in its simplicity.  Here on this silent white hillside, there was no horror.  This was their life--an endless hunt, an endless celebration of death.

As I stood within the circle of the kill, looking down at wolf prints frozen in blood, I brushed against their secret:  wolves understand death perfectly.  That's the bright, cold wisdom we see in their eyes, the thing that makes us afraid.  Death is their art, their beauty, while it's our darkness and terror.  If we ever understood what they know, we've forgotten.  Maybe we're drawn to them because they remember.

Barsness, Modern Hunting Optics





In Modern Hunting Optics (Deep Creek Press, 2014; www.RiflesAndRecipes.com), John Barsness has done much more than simply update his previous Optics for the Hunter (1999).  His new book is at once comprehensive, treating scopes, binoculars, rangefinders, red dot sights, and, even more important, systematic. Instead of buying a scope right off the bat, Barsness recommends getting a good hunting binocular, next a rangefinder, and only then a scope.  His reasoning is clear and  convincing (and no, I'm not going to tell you what it is).

Following his procedure results in an optics system that works together and becomes more than the sum of its parts, or synergistic.  Nearly as important, this system need not break your budget:  Barsness writes persuasively about optics other than those carrying European names, ones which work well and cost much less, and he describes a method of testing them that anyone can replicate--and should, for each of us sees a bit differently. 

Quibbles or caveats?  None . . . well, perhaps a footnote on a minor point.  Although Barsness mentions using a tripod for really high-powered binoculars, he doesn't mention the advantages of using a tripod for binoculars of lesser power, say 8X or 10X.  But, as I found on a black bear hunt one spring in Idaho, using a tripod with an adaptor for my Pentax DCF SP 8x43, not only did the stability of the tripod enable me to determine that each distant bear was in fact a stump, but it enabled me to glass longer without getting fatigued.  So, when debating between two binoculars, I'd suggest buying the one that takes a tripod adaptor.

Anyone even thinking about a new pair of binoculars or a scope or a spotting scope would be well advised to spend $25 on Modern Hunting Optics.  You will learn a lot, and if you follow his recommendations you'll almost certainly save a lot.   If you are fortunate enough to be in the top 1%, by definition money is no object.  For the other 99% of us, we want to buy the best we can afford.  John Barsness tells how to do precisely that.  If you shop carefully, you can put together a complete optical hunting system for about $1500.  Modern Hunting Optics is thus an investment well worth making.  That it's a pleasure to read is the icing on the cake.

Reviews of my book, Blood on My Hands

Writing a book can be a parlous activity:  alone on uncharted waters, trying to ignore self-doubt, discovering that what you thought you knew when you began to write has evaporated like the morning fog,  it's easy to begin thinking about giving it all up.  And when you actually have the book in hand, the silence is all but deafening.  You ask yourself, Was it really worth it?  That's when a positive review can lift your spirits.


Here is the link to one by Steve Bodio (who also wrote a blurb for the book) on his blog Querencia:  http://stephenbodio.blogspot.com, November 23, 2014.


And here is the link to the ones on Amazon, so far all five star reviews: 
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-My-Hands-Question-Relationship/dp/1457522322/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1416947408&sr=8-2&keywords=blood+on+my+hands#customerReviews

Remodeling a BRNO Mauser, Part 6

I've made some progress since my last post.  I've swapped out the military two stage trigger for a Timney, which necessitated some inletting for the larger trigger mechanism.  I have added a Talley barrel band for a sling swivel.  I happily paid $15 to get it professionally blued (it was sent as part of a batch from a local gunsmith and was back in a week), so it's a much better match with the bluing on the barrel than a cold blued band would be.

I've also substituted an "Extended Floorplate Release" for the military one.  It's available from Midway.  This is simple to do:  just drive out the pin visible below in the upper left corner.  There's a spring in there, so guard against its flying across the shop.  I had to file a bit to get the release to fit properly.  If you also cut a coil off the release spring, it makes it easier to release or replace the floorplate.

A new-in-the-box Lyman 18C front sight ramp came from E-bay ($10); it's a screw-on sight, but for a different size screw than the holes already tapped in the barrel, so I glued it to the barrel with Black Max (be advised, this sets up fast).  After doing some math, I ordered a front sight insert from Lyman.  A bit of filing with a triangular file on the insert (not on the ramp) resulted in a fine fit.  In a departure from tradition, I chose a fiber optic green bead.  Granted, the woods where I hunt whitetails are filled with hemlocks and white pine, but deer in late fall are a grayish brown, so the green should show up well.  More on that later.

Stockwork:  First came sanding and whiskering (wetting the wood with hot water to raise the grain, drying it, then sanding the whiskers off against the grain) through 320 grit.  I used sanding blocks whenever possible.  The difference between a first-class finishing job and a sloppy one lies in the sanding. Then came dyeing with a 2-2-1 mixture of dark walnut, red mahogany, and antique cherry dyes. (Let me emphasize the use of dyes, not stains which obscure the grain; they can be purchased at any decent woodworking supply house in powdered form, which you mix with water.  One source is Woodcraft.)  Try to be pleased when that first application of dye reveals blemishes you hadn't noticed.  After all, it's better to see them now rather than later.  Sand and whisker again, and then dye once more.  Repeat as necessary.

Given that the dye is water based, this may mean that you will have to do a final whiskering after dyeing the stock--I typically cut the whiskers off with the next finer grade of sandpaper, which in this case was 400 grit, going against the grain.  If you're going to checker the stock, make sure you've saved some of the dye to color the checkering.  I then applied two coats of  alkanet oil (if you want to make your own, see my post alkanet oil).  The alkanet oil should be applied sparingly, well rubbed in, and let dry for several days.  It's additive, so if you want it a bit darker, add another coat.  Make sure that no surplus remains on the surface of the stock.

Filling the Pores and Finishing:  When I can no longer smell the alkanet oil on the wood, the stock is ready for finishing.  I first applied two coats of marine spar varnish as a sealer (not that wood can ever be thoroughly sealed).  The first coat was thinned with mineral spirits.  Then I rubbed down lightly with 0000 steel wool.  Any hardware store will have some, but I prefer the extra fine oil-free steel wool sold by Lee Valley.  If the wood has really large pores, you may want to use a filler.  I've used Herter's French Red filler in the past, and it works.  Now, unless the pores are crater-like, I fill the pores by sanding in the finish. 

I have tried a variety of finishes and have settled on TruOil.  As with any finish, apply thin coats. I applied two coats of TruOil and then sanded in the third.  Typically, I use 320 or 400 grit. I wet a small portion of the stock with TruOil and then rubbed the sandpaper gently with the grain until the finish was almost dry.  Then, on to the next area.   A day later, I rubbed down the stock with 0000 steel wool.  I got rid of the steel wool particles by burning them off over my kitchen's gas stove (I have, fortunately, an understanding wife).  The pores were shallower but still visible, so I built up two more coats of TruOil and sanded in the following coat.  That filled the pores.  Another rubdown with 0000 steel wool and another coat of TruOil resulted in a finish you could see your face in.

I personally don't care for that high gloss, so I rubbed down the finish.  Tradition calls for using pumice or rottenstone, but I've found that auto rubbing compound works well and is cheap and readily available.  Just follow the directions, and as ever, use a light touch.  (If that finish isn't shiny enough for your taste, rub it down with--ready for this?--auto polishing compound.)  Wipe it down carefully and let it sit overnight.

At this point, either I apply two thin coats of furniture wax and buff it by hand, or a coat of alkanet oil, well rubbed in with the palm of your hand.  

The next post will deal with ways I've found to make checkering less error-prone.

Lee Valley

Post-Election Depression

From the Newsletter of Cornell Publications http://www.cornellpubs.com/old-guns/newsletters/ :



The Lure of the Falcon, by Gerald Summers

The Lure of the Falcon (Simon and Schuster, 1972) is a memoir in which Gerald Summers moves from his love for nature as a boy in pre-World War II England to an account of his experiences in battle in North Africa, his being wounded and captured by the Germans, flown to a POW camp in Sicily, his escape with four others and their recapture, and then his subsequent experiences in other Italian and then German POW camps until he is liberated by the Americans. 

Such a bald account does little to describe what can only be called an extraordinary book.  In the first place, it is imbued with a love for nature.  Although he never mentions the guidebooks he must have begun memorizing as a boy, he apparently could instantly identify any moth, bird, or butterfly that crossed his path.  And many of these he brought home with him.  He also acquires an wonderful bitch, Bracken, that goes with him everywhere and eventually finds the injured female kestrel he nurses back to health and names Cressida.

So far, this is the sort of book someone like Gerald Durrell could have written.  What makes The Lure of the Falcon unique is that Summers enlists in the British Army's Sherwood Foresters, the 4th Regiment of Foot, and calmly takes both Bracken and Cressida with him to basic training.  He then leaves Bracken with his mother, but he stuffs Cressida in his battle jacket and off they go to war.  Cressida becomes a kind of talisman, in fact, for the Foresters.

And there are indeed grounds for thinking that Cressida brings him luck. Wounded in a German assault first by a bullet and then by the explosion of a rifle grenade, he is captured and forced to remove his jacket so his multiple wounds can be attended to.  And there, "with her great lambent eyes scrutinizing the foe, sat Cressida."  Summers fully expects Nemesis to strike, but the German medical officer is staring at Cressida with an expression of rapture.  At last he breaks the complete silence, "Ah," says he, "ein Turmfalke," and all the Germans immediately relax.  It turns out that the German doctor had been a practicing falconer, and he even pulls out a photo of his goshawk to prove it.  And when Summers is shipped out, the MO brings him a tin with three mice in it so he can feed Cressida en route.

On another occasion, following his recapture in Sicily after an escape attempt, he is thrust at bayonet point into an interrogation with an officer of the Gestapo.  His interrogator stops barking questions at him when he spots a suspicious bulge in Summers' jacket.  He grabs Summers and thrusts his hand into his jacket, presumably thinking he will find a pocket radio.  The Gestapo officer yelps and quickly withdraws his hand, dripping with blood.  Summers then pulls Cressida out of his jacket:  she is mantling, her eyes glowing like red coals.  The Gestapo officer retreats.  Nobody says a word, but when Summers dares to look at the other Germans, all of them are trying to suppress their laughter.

Summers has to endure much as a POW, but he does endure.  After Cressida and he finally are liberated by the American troops, he can keep the promise he made to her when they embarked for North Africa:  he brings her safely home, back to a reunion with Bracken and his mother.  Such an ending could easily be sentimental, but Summers's understated prose instead makes us rejoice with him at their newfound freedom.