I ready to apply the Tru-Oil finish now.
I was talking with Roger T about why he uses stain and he says that black walnut will turn orange with time unless it gets a stain to seal out the Ultraviolet light. He actually gave me this almost gone can of walnut stain.
I sanded all the scratches out and applied a coat of the Watco brand oil stain.
After talking with several custom rifle makers they all had about the same thing to say about oil finishes. It seems the Tru-Oil is a good finish but its way too thick and you cant go by the instuctions. I emptied out 1/3 the oil from a new bottle and re-filled it with mineral spirits. I use a new bottle because this stuff has a short shelf life after its been opened especially. The unused portion turns to jelly so dont waste money buying the big economy bottle.
Anyway apply the oil with your finger and sand it with used 320 until it makes a slurry and looks to be drying up. Just leave it that way for about a week, yes a week. Smell it once in a while to see if it still smells wet. It needs to dry completely to seal the pores. That slurry filled the pores with its own wood dust and if you fuss with it before its dry it will have open pores again and will take a hundred coats to re-fill them again. That may be a slight exageration but you know what I mean.
I have done this on over 150 pairs of pistol grips and it does work. I know other people do things other ways but this is how I do it so no arguments. Its time consuming to say the least and thats why others do it differently. My super glue finish is much quicker but I want to show how my professional gun maker friends taught me. Yes this means this thread wont be over quick but I can do other things on the guard and spacers etc. between coats. After the seal (slurry) coat finially dries I can put one coat on per day or so. I will put it on and sand it back off with finer and finer grit paper until I reach about 4000 grit. The idea is to add oil and polish it at the same time. It builds slowly but believe me the results are worth the trouble. Have you ever accidently spilled oil on your cars paint job and tried to wipe it off? It doesnt come back off all the way, it always has that thin film of oil. This is the same principle. Wipe on, Wipe off. This is actually the extent of my karate skills.
Stained and put together one last time before applying the Tru Oil finish