Last of the winter projects (cooey model 39 refurbish)

wayupnorth

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My very first gun was this Cooey Model 39 that i received from my dad 31 years ago.
I learned to shoot on this gun and i took it everywhere i went and had many great adventures with it while growing up on a central Alberta farm.
last summer i taught my 2 daughters how to shoot with this gun and i felt some pangs of regret while teaching them because the gun was so beat up. so last week i decided i would get one last winter project in before the law mower comes out and rob's me of my down time.

so, the Refurbish of the Cooey Model 39.
i went and picked up some spirit wood stripper and some tung oil, some steel wool and some sand paper and had myself some fun!

here are the pics of the project.

you'll note how the stock is completely butchered, covered in a million scratches.
we can thank living on a dirt bike and bungie cording the gun to the metal rack of the old Honda Trike for all those scratches.

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here is a closer look at the stock
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after being stripped and a uber light sanding
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right in the middle of the first coat of Tung Oil
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coat number 3 (while at work)
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and the finished product!
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and the happy recipient of all dads hard work
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i followed the directions on the stripper can and tung oil.
brushed on the stripper (which was a all natural spirits one)
used a brush to take it all off once it bubbled up.
after it was all cleaned up i gave it a quick pass with some 80, 120 and 220 grit sand paper just to take off the deep scratches.
took all of about 1 minute for all 3 papers. i literally just gave about 2 strokes per grit per side as i didnt want to kill any of the lines of the stock.
application of the tung oil;
coat one, wait 10 minutes and rub down to get off excess.
coat 2 12 hours later, quick pass over with with some steel wool then same application procedure as above.
coat 3 24 hours later, same procedure as above.
coat 4 24 hours later, same procedure as above.
done!
gun now looks better then it did when i got it 31 years ago and probably looks on par with how it did when it was made 50 years ago.
very happy with the end result and so are the kids.
 
i made a video of me doing the refurbish.

if your into watching those kind of videos the link will be here for it once its done uploading.

 
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Kewl video, nicely done.

"Dah glad bag"...........Laugh2......kwick pense to the past?

Curious to know whether you have used Tru Oil on projects and
if so, how does it compare to the Circa Tung Oil?

I have pondered at this Tung oil for past projects and never took the leap.
 
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Looks pretty good so far but I have to ask why only 4 coats?

i had originally planned to do 7 coats on top of the initial 2, so 9 in total.
but when i read the bottle of Tung Oil it said to do 4.
and once i reached the 4th coat the gun looked really good, and i honestly didnt see any difference between coat 2, 3 and 4.
the 4th coat i did do differently as well, the first three i applied liberally with a rag and rubbed in.
the 4th i just straight poured onto the stock and rubbed until it was all absorbed.

but your question has been the only part of this whole process what has been nagging at me.
i really didnt know where i should stop.
my plan now is to let the gun sit for a week now that its back together and then have a look at it and see how it looks, if it looks dry then i think ill add a couple more coats but if it still looks the same ill probably just leave it and just give it a once a month coat.
 
I did my mod 60 last winter. Did 5 coats and it looked like a matte finish for a while but about a month or 2 later the wood looked very dry. I put on 4 or 5 more coats waiting a day in between and it has a gloss look now but the wood doesn't have that dry look anymore. I redid a cil 171 that same winter and it has 13 coats ish on it. I put a few dings in the stock since then and the oil soaked right into the wood because normally when you ding a stock you can see dry unfinished wood and on that cil you can't.

I would suggest picking up some Renaissance wax for it when you are complete as well. It will seal it so water won't penetrate at all. Midway has a video on the wax. I put it on everything now and it is way better then gun oil.
 
Ya I love the wax. I won't use oil anymore as this stuff works so much better. The wood really looks good with it on there and the metal doesn't fingerprint. Also the more you use it the better it gets. Lots of museums use it as well on everything.
 
took the Daughters out to the range last week and they got to use the newly refinished gun, worked flawlessly and they thought it was great.
project successful!

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Very nice!

My buddy and I did very much the same for an old spring/breakbarrel airgun...and while we used Danish oil, the results were just as great as yours!

We then took some steel wool to the steel, and used some Cold Blueing on the steel...and even as total amateurs the results were far better than expected!

But...there are some tips in the gunsmithing part of this site to get better results with cold blueing...I seem to think the use of a hair dryer is used to keep the steel warm to let the blueing "set" even better than just following the instructions alone. I think I'll try that next time I do a refurb...which will be this summer!
 
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