Comrads, My Latest Project

M

mdmaroon

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Location
Richmond, BC
First of all, thanks Westrifle for awesome service! I got this thing the day after I ordered it! Probably not even 24 hours until it was in my hand.

What is it? A 1938 Mosin 91/30.

What did I do to it?

Removed all cosmoline from metal and wood. Removed old shellack using methanol and a soft rag. NO sandpaper touched it.

Then I refinished the whole thing using the French Polish technique. The resulting finish is just shellack, which is the proper finish of the period, but applied in a way that they would never have the time to do in a factory. There's no stain, or any other colourants. Just dark garnet shellack.

The wood has a finish worthy of a fine violin. It has a glassy, smooth sheen with luster and depth.

The photos were taken with my iphone and the lighting conditions weren't great, so they are a little grainy, but you get the idea...

Here it is:









 
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Nice work, wanna do that to my Mosin's? I'm in the same area. All jokes aside, that's probably the nicest refinish I've seen.
 
Droooooool....... Nice work MD!!! Comrade, your bourgeoisque extravagance and the resulting appearance make one question your commitment to the proletarian revolution. A couple of comrades will be visiting you shortly for a private discussion :cool:
 
desporterizer said:
Did you actually use rottenstone?
Click to expand...

No, I used only the freshest stone. HAha ...

But seriously, I didn't need to. It turned out great anyway. I put on a few layers of shellack and allowed it to harden for 48 hours first, then did the polishing step with alcohol and olive oil on a soft rag that was balled up into itself to expose a smooth surface.
 
I'm working on an M38 now.

For this one, I'm going to remove the cosmoline, but instead of removing the old finish, I'm only going to repair it.

The wood has nice character, the finish is pretty good, with a few areas with minor damage, and the cosmoline isn't badly soaked in. You can identify heavily saturated cosmoline areas in the wood because they become dark, and the wood even begins to come apart into fibers. This rifle has none of that.

Should be done in a few days! I'll start a new thread for that...
 
mdmaroon, I'm thinking about rubbing some shellac into few worn spots on my sks.
Found this orange shellac in homedepot
EB440030_3.jpg


Can I just get some shellac on piece of cloth and rub it in or do I need to somehow prepare that spot?
 
Yet another beautiful shellac job by mdmaroon - Shellac is forgiving to work with (Patience is required) and correct for these rifles.

I've really enjoyed refinishing with it, the best part is if you royally screw the finish up its easy to strip off without sanding and start over. In terms of appearance this beats a tung oil, tru-oil, whatever oil finish hands down IMHO. That said, you won't catch me using it on my Lee Enfield! :D
 
Umka said:
mdmaroon, I'm thinking about rubbing some shellac into few worn spots on my sks.
Found this orange shellac in homedepot
EB440030_3.jpg


Can I just get some shellac on piece of cloth and rub it in or do I need to somehow prepare that spot?
Click to expand...

Well...maybe. Try Googling "shellac finish repair" and read all you can find about it. If it's your first time, it's very likely that it'll turn out poorly and you'll have to strip and refinish the whole stock to make it look nice.

In fact, that's what I'm probably going to have to do with the M38 I mentioned a couple posts up. Upon closer inspection, I've noticed that the stock has already been taken to the great communist belt sander during the refurb process, so most of the inspection stamps are gone or very faint. Therefore, I've decided to just strip it down and start fresh. It's MUCH easier to get a nice finish starting from bare wood. Repairing an old finish is actually harder. I almost pulled it off with the M38, but the areas where there was no shellac don't look quite right.

On the M38, since I don't have to worry about destroying inspection stamps or markings, and the stock is actually from an M44, I won't feel bad about doing a complete refinish, complete with sandpaper, maybe some Danish Oil finish to bring out the grain, and shellac over top. I don't think it'll affect the value of the rifle because it wouldn't have been worth much to a collector anyway. It'll always just be an M38, in an M44 stock that has already had all the cartouches sanded off during refurb. So, I might as well just make it look nice!
 
Umka said:
mdmaroon, I'm thinking about rubbing some shellac into few worn spots on my sks.
Found this orange shellac in homedepot
EB440030_3.jpg


Can I just get some shellac on piece of cloth and rub it in or do I need to somehow prepare that spot?
Click to expand...

I've used this stuff before, but as it is not dewaxed shellac so it will take longer to fully cure than mixed at home varieties. You can apply it with a paint brush but try not to go over the areas once you've placed the finish on the wood. Once it's hardened up after a couple days, polish out any brush marks with some extra fine 0000 steel wool with a few drops of oil added to it. You can blend in any overlaps so that they are almost invisible.

**edit: Forgot to mention shellac is one of the few finishes that is tolerant of oil, it will still dry overtop of cosmoline, but it will be ugly!
 
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