Today I picked up some Mineral Spirits (MS) and wiped down the VZ stock an the grain looks tight. The shine the MS gave was made the wood look beautiful. Now, I'm just finishing up with the 400 paper but I need to look at it with the MS in better light as today it was overcast and some of the sanding imperfections may have been hidden in the flat light. In reading Flexner's book and he insist that the grain needs to be raised and sanded down. I tend to stay away from putting water on or into a stock, it is humid here on L.I. Soooo I will wipe it down once and follow through with his recommendation, I'm curious how much grain will be raised. The MS showed me once again that the stock is dirty blond at the forend graduates to a medium walnut with a feathering of a scarlet pink towards the butt. My goal is to even out the these tone with the tinting.
Now the hand guard which didn't come with the stock is another story. Once I wiped it with the MS the grain streaks stood out. I thought both pieces of wood were similar in color value during the sanding process. However, the hand guard, for lack of the right terminology has rows of blond rings which is not at all similar to the stocks grain. Although the blond grain isn't rough it does look open. So I think it needs to be raised and whiskered.
I will take the recommendation of not filling the couple of dents in the stock an keep them as part of the character of the gun. Anything done to the dents will still be an eye catcher so they're fine as they are. The MS is recommended to work with the oil soluble Aniline dyes as well as the a cutter for the True Tung oil. And as suggested at the final finish I'll sand the oil with a 400+ paper and slurry it into the what's left of the grain. Tomorrow I'll work on raising the grain and I hope in a few days I can start tinting. I'm trying to model the color after my other VZ but maybe not as orange as this one needs should have it's own personality.
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