Question about putting mineral spirits on raw wood stock..

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VaniB

New member
Question about putting mineral spirits on raw wood stock to show grain..

I have heard that if you want to see what the grain of an unfinshed wood stock would look like, you can put some mineral spirits on it, and it will darken the wood to give you a glimpse. When it later evaporates/dissapates in a few hours, it will leave the wood back in the same way it was.

But I can't remember if it was paint thinner or mineral spirits I'm supposed to use. ???
 
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In case anybody cares to know. I went through a stack of papers to find my old notes about it; It's PAINT THINNER.

I'm not sure if mineral spirits would be as safe, as the low odor variety sure would be preferred.
 
"First, do no harm."

Water. It will only raise the grain which can be sanded off to make a slicker finish.

Concho Bill
 
Paint thinner or mineral spirits, pretty much the same. You can also use lacquer thinner (dries faster). You can also use denatured alcohol, although it'l likely have a bit of water and will raise the grain a tad. All of these are harmless to the wood. Just pick your favorite odor.
 
Glynn is correct. Water, mineral spirits, paint thinner, denatured acohol or laquer thinner will do NO harm to your stock. It may raise the grain a bit, but that is nothing a bit of sanding wont take care of. I say this as I have been a residential and commercial painter for 28 years.

John
 
When I finish a gunstock I always use a wet cloth to apply water to the wood to raise the grain and then I use the finest steel wool to knock down the grain. I repeat this three or four times or more until there is no more raised grain.

I figure that the wood grew in a tree in the forest where it rains quite a bit. I also figure that there is nothing that I am likely to do to the wood that I cannot fix.

There you have it from a fairly good wood worker and a good painter.:)
John is the painter.

Concho Bill
 
Perhaps this hasn't dawned on anybody......but another reason (and my reason) to do this is to simply post a photo to a prospective buyer on Ebay what the wood grain could look like when he applies finish to it.

The effects only last about a minute or so before the stuff dissapates (and just long enough to take a picture), and the merchandise remains looking new and undisturbed.
 
Vani,
Go on any website that sells blanks. What is the one thing they all do? Wet the blanks for a picture to do exactly what your wanting to do. Mineral spirits and paint thinner are one in the same. They are a lower cost replacement to turpentine. Someday if your in a hardware store look at the cost diffrence between paint thinner and turpentine. Ok enough of the painting lessons for today.

John
 
Back when...

I was making stocks I used water to raise the grain.

However I used mineral spirits just before I started to put the finish on the wood. The mineral spirits would remove all finger prints, etc.

After the mineral spirits I always touched the wood stock only with clean cotton gloves on to prevent getting any more finger prints.

Dick Wright
 
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