I have had a couple eMails about my "formula" for the Russian finish tint. There are a couple was to go about this. First of all some people would have you believe that this can only be accomplished by some soooper secret method, not true! Anybody with mild wood refinishing skills can accomplish it, but they need to take their time!

For you Chemical Engineer types out there......

The Varnish formula is as follows:
Russian Gun Stock Varnish

Percent

Spar Varnish 98.920
Bayer Macrlolex Yellow 6G 0.800
Finos Red 693 0.125
Finos Blue 1402 0.155


Heat to 150-180F for 2 hours. Shake or shear contents for 10 minutes. Filter when cooled to room temp through 100 micron bag.

This isn't too much help for those of us who are not Chemical Engineers, or access to a full chemical lab. There is however another way for the common man to accomplish this feat. Here is an example of what can be done with some simple products and some time


For the Homebrew types........

Required materails
Rit Dye
#42 Golden Yellow
#25 Dark Brown
#16 Tan
#5 Scarlet
Isopropyl Alcohol
Yellow Varnish
0000 Steel Wool
mixing cups
cheese cloth(I have used coffee filters also)
rags
brush

Start off by putting a few teaspoons of the yellow dye in the filter materail, then pour a cup of alcohol thru it. The reason is we want the color, but not the salts. After it has filtered thru once then pour it thru again and again until you have a bright yellow mixture. (Side note: if you wanted to duplicate the light Chinese wood finish you would stop here) Now get another filter this time do this with the scarlet. Then depending on the "brown hue" you want either the the tan or the dark brown. (you won't need much of this mixture).

Now, slowly add some red to the yellow making an orangish (Iodine) colored mixture. Find a piece or a spot of the wood that is not so noticable, and "stain it" using some of your rag materail. Adjust color to suit mixing in more red, yellow, brown, etc.

I usually put on about 3 coats of this lightly buffing in between with 0000 steel wool. Next with your wood "tinted" Open your Yellow Varnish. DO NOT SHAKE!!!!!, this will cause bubbles in your finish. Slowly stir with a wooded stick. Using a brush to apply. Apply light coats, again AFTER each coat has had time to dry lightly buff with 0000 steel wool. I do not buff after the final coat as you want very light brush marks to remain.

If you like the plum color and darkened grain that old oiled stocks get, try KIWI Cordovan shoe polish in the tin. Gives a nice aged Russian look. This is for oiled stocks only, like the Yugos and the Polish front handguards. I havent tried putting a surface finish (like urethane or varnish) over it, but I would think adhesion might be a problem because the KIWI has a wax base.

Start off by putting a few teaspoons of the yellow dye in the filter materail, then pour a cup of alcohol thru it. The reason is we want the color, but not the salts. After it has filtered thru once then pour it thru again and again until you have a bright yellow mixture. (Side note: if you wanted to duplicate the light Chinese wood finish you would stop here) Now get another filter this time do this with the scarlet. Then depending on the "brown hue" you want either the the tan or the dark brown. (you won't need much of this mixture).

Now, slowly add some red to the yellow making an orangish (Iodine) colored mixture. Find a piece or a spot of the wood that is not so noticable, and "stain it" using some of your rag materail. Adjust color to suit mixing in more red, yellow, brown, etc.

I usually put on about 3 coats of this lightly buffing in between with 0000 steel wool. Next with your wood "tinted" Open your Yellow Varnish. DO NOT SHAKE!!!!!, this will cause bubbles in your finish. Slowly stir with a wooded stick. Using a brush to apply. Apply light coats, again AFTER each coat has had time to dry lightly buff with 0000 steel wool. I do not buff after the final coat as you want very light brush marks to remain.

What places sell RIT Dye ?

Thank you very much for the info Jeep. Much appreciated!!

Nice post but how about a pic for a fellow Jeeper of the finished wood so a noob like me can take a look ...

anyone got any pics of how just using golden yellow comes out?
Thanks

The furniture on my WASR-10 is really rough, is there a different mixture to get the stain like the set on the top of this picture, or do I just not use alcohol? Maybe 2 Brown to 1 red, and still use the alcohol? I'm really new to this.

I use Mahawk brand dye with the mahawk dried laquer mixed with alcohol. The weird thing is it seems to darken and coagulate over time, so now I'mm oly mixing enough for wqhatever batch of 20 stock sets I'm doing. I mix a batch and it takes 5 coates to get the depth of red I wanted, but then a week later the same stuff is too dark in one coat (mohawk red mahogany shifting to "oxblood".

Anyway, I just cut it with some more alcohol and fresh lac flakes. I switch to amber from red if the first two coates ge the color I want.



Since these are production guns, I mix it thin enough to dunk without getting too much pooling. drip dries in about 10 minutes, so I can do 5 coats on 20 stocks in a couple hours.

Then I let it dfry overnight, buff with steel wool, then hit with 1-2 final coats.

I've also used the bullseye brand of amber varnish from ACE hardware, it works well for amber, but I like to thin it.



heres a darker "oxblood"



and a lighter "dark red mahogany"

For "odd" colors like Grey-Blue, I recommend using LEATHER DYE.
The type I used to stain woods was Tandy Pro Alcohol-based leather dye.
Tandy recently discontinued it and replaced it with an "Eco-Dye" that's water based.

Water-based dyes are great for wood, since they soak in fast and give true colors.
Thin well with alcohol to prevent staining the wood too dark.

I used Tandy Red, Yellow, and Cordovan (Red-Brown) to do my AK stock, and it worked MUCH better than the RIT dyes, plus the leather dye contains no salt like the RIT does.

For odd ball colors, like an OD Green stock, or in your case, a Gray-Blue, this should be the best since you can get the leather dyes in MANY colors including Blue.

how about some pics please

Here's a useful tip for running the de-natured alchohol through the Rit dye...

Instead of using a paper coffee filter to contain and hold the dye powder to run the alchohol through, today as I was mixing up some of the Russian red stain for my WASR 10/63's wood, I happened to have one of those
gold mesh coffee filters that was left over from a dead coffee maker. It's the kind that uses the cone shaped filters to brew.

I just put the dye in the filter, set the filter over an old mason jar to catch the liquid and poured the alchohol over the dye. No waiting six months for a little dab of alchohol to drain through a paper filter, it ran right through.

With another jar at the ready, I poured the dye solution back and forth over the dye several times till it looked about right, dumped the dye residue in the trash can, ran water over the gold mesh filter and continued on with my stain job on the wood.

By the way, it turned out beautiful.

( Don't know if it'd be a good idea to use the one your wife makes her morning coffee with though )