Tom,

The rifle is a clone of a mid-50's Belgian Army FN FAL. It's a clone, so
it's a mish-mash of foreign and domestic parts, but the handguards are
original. Fabrique Nationale's wood finish for their semi-auto guns was a
yellowish lacquer, probably over a dip coat of BLO; I have experience with
Garand stock finishes, and I've handled a mint-condition FN 49 (cousin to
the FAL) which has a beautiful yellow-gold finish that's definitely not
oil-only.

To give some background, the wood parts FN made for other country's FAL
contracts (like Germany) also have the same gloss coating which shows its
nature at the wear spots. By comparison, the repro furniture I had
custom-made has had BLO ONLY applied, and they look nothing like the
handguards. I've also worked with a batch of Argentine FAL stocks. The
Argentines, like most early FAL buyers, took some originals and then got a
license to build their own FALs later, and out of the batch I worked with,
about half were BLO finished and half were shiny lacquered. My guess is that
they found the lacquer too delicate and went to BLO on their own pieces.

If these handguards are oil finish, it's like no oil finish I've ever seen;
tough, glossy, yellow in color, chipped and worn on the surface, and not
penetrated into the wood.

I do live a short drive from an actual Rockler's store... Man, it's hard to
not spend money in there.


"Tom Banes" wrote in message
...
I suspect that the finish you're trying to match is well-aged BLO. The
stock appears to be a military piece, possibly an M1, from the photos.
Most 1950s era military weapons had a BLO finish and it would have
gotten really yellow by now (my WWII issue certainly M1 is). I do not
believe the US military used a lacquer finish on any of its wood
stocked weapons - lacquer won't hold up to the kind of abuse a
military weapon must endure. I suspect that's true of most other
countries a swell.

To match, I'd suggest trying some oil based dye added to BLO. General
Finishes sells a small sampler kit that I think is available at
Rockler.Com. Hope you kept some scraps to try for a match.

Regards.

Tom

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