Old gun project

[Old Boggy]

I consider myself very lucky to have recently been given a James Woodward 'The Automatic' push forward underlever (Woodward & Southgate patent No.600 of 1878) 12 bore No. 1 of a pair made in 1878, with an excellent provenance.

The barrels have been re sleeved in about 1960 steel on Damascus and have dimensions as at the time of sleeving so plenty of use in the old girl yet, although some lapping maybe necessary in the future as there is some very light pitting.

However, the forend wood has been replaced with a beaver tail type at some stage which I rightly or wrongly assume may have been for an arthritic left hand for a previous owner, or maybe replaced in keeping with the 'fashion' at the time of replacement. Anyway, a splinter forend would undoubtedly be more in keeping with the age of the gun.

A friend has kindly offered to give me a suitable forend from some he has, upon me sending him the forend iron, but in the meantime and to try out my amateurish woodworking skills, I have re shaped the forend into a splinter shape but am having difficulty in getting a dark finish and 'patina' to the wood to try to match the stock. I have tried deep mahogany wood stain but it still is not dark enough. Also I have some red oil & boiled linseed for possible final finishing.

Also I have borrowed some checkering tools to try my hand at re checkering and am desperately practicing on any available bit of hardwood in the meantime, before attempting the real thing.

Sorry about the above long drawn out description, but my questions are :-

1. How would I get a darker finish ?

2. Is the checkering normally done before or after the staining process ?

Many thanks in advance for any tips anyone can give on the above as I know there is some great woodworking and gun making talent out there.

[subsonicnat]

Normaly Checkering is Done after Finish, in your case,,BEFORE,,So if you go over the line at least you can make it Dissappear.lol.