cheap chu wood refinishing?

k, she is out of the dishwasher (went through a full cycle including dry), Its completely stripped!!! im honestly quite amazed, i did not realize the power of dishwasher soap. Anyway it looks pretty good, it pulled most of the dents out; however it really needs a light sanding now. There is some decent grain on the stock so we shall see how it turns out. (canuklehead...the higher powers in the household all knew what was going on, i guess im just lucky)
 
probably just the heat and steam.....the last stock i refinished i used an iron and a moist cloth (place the cloth over the dent, then put the hot iron on it), it was also quite effective at pulling out dents; but im pretty sure the dishwasher one upped it. im in the process of teak oiling the chu stock, i will show you guys some pics when its done, it looks pretty good so far but wont be as cool looking as master-g's
 
After the easy off way, the stock is somekind of strip to the bare wood, now a good little sanding will be done ...

more result to come
 
Alright, here is my refinished chu wood stock. Basically it is just stripped with the dishwasher and rubbed with teak oil, it could probably use a bit of shine but i dont know very much about furniture refinishing so i dont know what to use.

m14grain.jpg

m14wfireplace.jpg

and in the springfield synthetic stock clothing for comparison
m14Bfireplace.jpg
 
Looks sweet! You are a brave man Bob using the dishwasher. My wife would skin me alive ;) Maybe I will wait until tonight when she is in a deep sleep to do it :D

Good work...I am itchin to refinish mine now.
 
so does anyone have a good idea for protecting the wood and giving it a bit of luster? i have some spray on varnish but that seems like a bad idea.
 
I used about 8 coats of double boiled linseed oil. The last two I sanded in with 400 grit sand paper to create a slurry of oil and sanding dust that filled in the grain nicely.

One good thing about DBLO is if the stock gets scratched, just rub in a bit of oil, and its good as new.
 
Basically, I rubbed the last couple of coats with the 400 grit sand paper.

Let it sit with the slurry on it for a couple hours, and then wiped off the excess.

Made it silky smooth, without a varnish or shelac shine.
 
platnumbob said:
you sand in with the oil? do you just sand it wet with oil with the grain?
Click to expand...

Sanding with oil is a filling technique and works very well. I use it all of the time. With very opened grain wood like the Norinco stocks, to achieve either a lustrous finsish or a satin finish many sandings (or fine steel wool) are required.

Steps

1. After stripping down to bare wood.
- Let dry for at least 24 hours (no matter how much you want to sand)
- sand with 180 wet/dry and rinse with isopropyl alcohol
- let dry for 24 hours and then soak in fresh water for 30 seconds

This is important as you want to dewhisker and get a smooth stock,

After the water bath towel it dry and let it sit for an hour. Have an iron heating up in the meantime. After an hour, place a damp towell over the stock and apply heat from the iron (1/4") over the towell. This will raise any whiskers and/or dents.

After doing the entire stock in this manner you are good to go the next day.

NEXT DAY

Usually the whiskers point south so use the steel wool to cut them off. One direction only. Don't rub, one swipe south to north depending on the grain.

Repeat this step if needed

No matter what wood I am working with I do the following after de-whiskering

light sanding with 320 and 600 grit wet/dry repeat as necessary

After this prep you can oil it and sand it for as many coats as you want.



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I used the dishwasher method last night, and it works AWESOME. Couldn't believe it, but every bit of stain and gunk is gone.

Use the high-temp scrub if you got it... worked great! Thanks for the idea!
 
ya ditto on the dishwasher..... I am amazed at the results actually, not a spot of the old finish left... I highly recommend this method, I also used the extra long pots and pans cycle and the full drying cycle. Looks like a new unfinished stock. Time to de-wisker and start a cool camo krylon paint job :D
 
I just used the newest version of cascade dishwasher soap, put it on the longest strongest cycle and let it complete the full wash/dry operation. My stock came out looking like plain natural wood. I left all the metal on the stock except the buttplate assembly. 24 hours after this procedure, after sitting in a fairly warm room , I noticed the odd streak of oils seeping from some of the thicker wood in the butt and up in the foregrip. I repeated the dishwasher cycle on it's normal, standard setting and again waited 24 hours.... no sign of oils anywhere, time to start my project :D
 
Cool stuff guys, I used stripper , but the washer sounds like the way to go for oil penetrated deep into wood.
For refinish job, try rub on poly from walmart, it is excellent. And you can sand between coats to fill any heavy grain areas
Frank
 
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