I think I just baked my stock
- Thread starter 1000101
- Start date
- Location
- Lac Pelletier Sask
Yep,, called sandpaper and a can of varnish
Travis Bickle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Upper Lower Middle Alberta
lol
The shellac is what's bubbling up, most likely from the heat of the oven raising up oil from the wood underneath the layer of melty shellac.
Get some solvent and a stiff brush and scrub the shellac off.
Then use some easy off oven cleaner on the de-shellaced stock to suck all the oil and crud out of it.
Then sand and refinish with your choice of finish.
Check out this thread:
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=766452
He turned and ugly SKS stock into a brand new looking one! I am thinking of doing the same to mine down the road.
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=766452
He turned and ugly SKS stock into a brand new looking one! I am thinking of doing the same to mine down the road.
Travis Bickle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Upper Lower Middle Alberta
If you finish it with a tung oil or boiled linseed oil after you suck out all the gunk with the oven cleaner and sand it down smooth, the oil will bring out the natural orange/redness of the arctic birch.
Travis Bickle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Upper Lower Middle Alberta
Here is a pic of my 1950 Tula SKS which I refinished with my described method thus far.
I used a boiled linseed oil finish.
I love it.
I am no expert but I have heard it said that the darker "redness" that you are talking about and are seeing in my pic is because the Soviets would harden the wood with heat and that is why the darker "redde" almost tiger stripe patterns are in the wood.
I believe this to be true as anyone who has worked with birch will attest to its very stable colour throughout.
So much of the redder heat spots are on the surface of the wood if this is true. As long as you don't sand down deep (I didn't at all on mine) you should retain the redness of the wood.
Don't use varnish. The Tung oil is the finish itself.
What you should do, is grab some of that circa 1850 paint stripper from any big box store. Use it to strip the remaining shellac off. then, buff the wood with some 0000 steel wool, avoid sand paper as it removes too much material at a time, and the super fine papers plug up really quick. You won't have this issue with steel wool. Then apply the tung oil or whatever finish you want, lightly buffing between coats. If you want to color the wood at all, the stain should be applied before the oil.
The Soviets used a 'shellac' finish, which is different than varnish - don't use varnish. The red colors they achieved with Shellac are due to redish pigment being added to the shellac itself, and not any sort of staining on the stock. So a proper Soviet style finish should be a redish shellac that can scratch or flake off fairly easily, leaving a light yellowish wood underneath where it does get scratched.
If you want to refinish your stock so its historically correct, then maybe try to do a shellac finish.
The real question here is... do you want to refinish with the historically correct shellac, or do you want to use a different finish that might have other qualities (some better, some worse)?
When I was re-finsihing my old SKS, I chose an entirely different method, since I wanted different properties than the historical shellac finish offers. I went with a wood stain (cherry wood + 23 shots of red color), and then used a blended oil finish called 'Tru-Oil'. Its a nice hard weather resistant finish that's durable, but also super easy to repair.
Other guys go with an oil finish that rubs in like boiled linseed. You can see that Travis Bickle has done a fantastic job on his SKS with boiled linseed. What I like about his SKS is that it captures the original look of the shellac finish better than what I've done.
Above all else... I would recommend that you use your imagination, try something new to you, and use the opportunity to learn. Also, look around at other people work, then think about what you want to achieve.
A shellac that has been tinted with the red color is what will achieve the historical red color of the SKS. Or you can use another method. I experimented and added paint to wood stain.
Here what I did with some standard cherry wood stain and a bit of red paint. Its not historical, but I only wanted to capture the essence of a 'red rifle' without going back to the historical red shellac.
Here is a pic of my 1950 Tula SKS which I refinished with my described method thus far.
I used a boiled linseed oil finish.
I love it.
Very nice finish Travis. Although not a historically correct finish either, it has a very historical look, and would be much more durable than shellac. I love it!
I refinished a Norinco with steel wool and then Tung Oil. It looks like a custom rifle now.
I am about to do the same to a MN sniper and a Russian SKS.
Nice thing about Tung Oil, (or True Oil) is that it is easy to buff it with steel wool and give it one more coat any time it gets too worn and scratched.
I am about to do the same to a MN sniper and a Russian SKS.
Nice thing about Tung Oil, (or True Oil) is that it is easy to buff it with steel wool and give it one more coat any time it gets too worn and scratched.
