Ok, so ive been looking around at how to add tiger stripes to a stock.....and i was relatively unsuccessful in finding much of any information at all.
i was surprised with the wealth of information on the web that i was unable to find any how-to or tutorials...the most i was able to get was "yeah, i heard you can do them with a blowtorch"......not really of much help.
seeing as i had an old 'practice' stock kicking around, i figured ide give it a go, and to help anyone looking for the same information, i figured ide document the process.
now this isnt really meant to be a tutorial, this is really more of a documentation of what i did and feel free to change things up to suit your needs or offer constructive criticism.
now the stock i started off with was a simple walnut stock that i keep around to practice wood finishing techniques on.
i stripped the old finish off and sanded it to smooth to 220
now the process i decided to use was to wrap the stock with 1/4" sisal rope that had been soaked for a few hours in water. then to simply go over it with a propane blowtorch.
now it stands to reason that where there is not a rope, youll get the tiger stripe, so space the ropes to your liking.
now if my understanding of the chemistry is correct, you are not actually burning the wood, you are simply caramelizing the sugars in the wood, you are also hardening the wood you head which means it will accept stain differently than the unhardened wood.
now when you are heating the wood, you do not want to keep the flame too close (no less than 5 inches off the wood) nor do you want to keep the flame in one place too long (no longer than 1/4 of a second in one place). you always want to keep the flame moving until you get a very even coloring.
here is how it look with the ropes removed.
now i know what your thinking...your thinking "man, thats one burned up stock".....well lest see how it looks with some light sanding.
i was surprised with the wealth of information on the web that i was unable to find any how-to or tutorials...the most i was able to get was "yeah, i heard you can do them with a blowtorch"......not really of much help.
seeing as i had an old 'practice' stock kicking around, i figured ide give it a go, and to help anyone looking for the same information, i figured ide document the process.
now this isnt really meant to be a tutorial, this is really more of a documentation of what i did and feel free to change things up to suit your needs or offer constructive criticism.
now the stock i started off with was a simple walnut stock that i keep around to practice wood finishing techniques on.
i stripped the old finish off and sanded it to smooth to 220
now the process i decided to use was to wrap the stock with 1/4" sisal rope that had been soaked for a few hours in water. then to simply go over it with a propane blowtorch.
now it stands to reason that where there is not a rope, youll get the tiger stripe, so space the ropes to your liking.
now if my understanding of the chemistry is correct, you are not actually burning the wood, you are simply caramelizing the sugars in the wood, you are also hardening the wood you head which means it will accept stain differently than the unhardened wood.
now when you are heating the wood, you do not want to keep the flame too close (no less than 5 inches off the wood) nor do you want to keep the flame in one place too long (no longer than 1/4 of a second in one place). you always want to keep the flame moving until you get a very even coloring.
here is how it look with the ropes removed.
now i know what your thinking...your thinking "man, thats one burned up stock".....well lest see how it looks with some light sanding.
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