Lightening Bolt Rifle

A customer had an unusual request. He had seen a picture of the Lichtenberg burning process and wanted to see if it could be replicated on an existing gun stock. Yes. I can do that for you. He also wanted a replacement custom bolt knob on his rifle as well. This is an unusual request for a rifle that is much different aesthetically to what you would normally see. To start the process, I cranked up my forge and pounded out a large acorn shaped knob and added it to the bolt handle of the rifle.

Pounding out an acorn shape on my 100# power hammer and a set of forming swages.

Next came the preparation of the stock itself for the Lichtenberg burning process. Using a neon sign transformer and a foot pedal wired in and a couple of jumpers, I was able to get started after stripping the original finish from the wood. You can see the video of how this works on an earlier blog on this page.

After carefully covering the stock with the pattern, I then sanded it lightly to smooth out the burnt surface. By using an electrolyte, I zapped the wood with 15,000 volts of electricity to achieve the results.

Next, I mixed up a two part clear epoxy with a tint to fill in the primary burn channels to add a small bit of subtle color.

After sanding away the excess scorch marks, I filled in each of the electrical streaks with the fire blue epoxy, and applied a ohand rubbed oil finish to the stock.

I welded the new acorn shaped bolt knob in place and used black Cerakote to give it a nice finish.

The customer had requested this unusual rifle that’s a bit different than what you would see in the woods while hunting. He’s very pleased with how it turned out.

This is an example of how I combine some of the different techniques to make a one of a kind rod o customer specifications. Here I used Lichtenberg burning and blacksmithing for this rifle.