After experimenting on scraps, I finally came up with what I wanted. I wanted to duplicate the stain of the original stove black and linseed oil but with more gloss. What I ended up doing was to apply a wet coat of black paint then wipe it off quickly. That gave me a nice, slightly distressed, dark stain that still shows the grain nicely. I followed that with several coats of 'Helmsman' clear gloss. I will put one more coat of 'Helmsman' on tomorrow then put it all together when it cures. I really like the way it's turning out. I think if I do another, I may experiment with using the body color for stain followed by 'Helmsman'. It may not work as well with brighter colors though.
