little help with refinishing mosin wood

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Bob7.62

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i've been tring to refinish my mosin nagant rifles.
My M38 I stripped down with circa 1850, this made the color uneven. then applying, daily , layers of BLO. I am hoping that color will even out???With my M91/30 I have some scaches in the varnish. Do I have to apply varnish to get the original look back?
 
No, no, no!

Do not linseed oil a Mosin Nagant stock! Unless it's Finnish.

You need amber tinted SHELLAC. It's a natural tree resin.
 
Bob7.62 said:
Thank you I thought I was barking up the wrong tree!
I'll start looking for that SHELLAC . Can I just touch up the scraches or do I have to strip all the wood?
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You don't have to redo all the stock. The beauty of shellack is that it is soluble in denatured alcohol. You just paint it over the old finish and the old varnish layer melts superficially and mixes with the new coats.
By the way, shellack is a byproduct of some insect shell. It's soluble in alcohol.
Depending on grade, it has to be dewaxed or not.
Lee Valley Tools sells shellack crystals. Just buy the reddish ones, it will match your Russian Mosin's original finish.
Good luck!
PP.:)
 
Wow!

"Once it was commonly believed that shellac was a resin obtained from the wings of an insect (order Hemiptera) found in India. In actuality, shellac is obtained from the secretion of the female insect, harvested from the bark of the trees where she deposits it to provide a sticky hold on the trunk. There is a risk that the harvesting process can scoop the insect up along with the secretion, leading to its death. The natural coloration of lac residue is greatly influenced by the sap consumed by the lac insect and the season of the harvest. Generally in the trade of seedlac there are two distinct colors: the orange Bysacki and the blonde Kushmi."
 
Actually, the Lee Valley amber is the wrong color. What you need to order is garnet shellac from shellac.net - it only come in flake, you dissolve it yourself in denatured alcohol.

Garnet is a bit darker than the amber.
 
skirsons said:
Wow!

"Once it was commonly believed that shellac was a resin obtained from the wings of an insect (order Hemiptera) found in India. In actuality, shellac is obtained from the secretion of the female insect, harvested from the bark of the trees where she deposits it to provide a sticky hold on the trunk. There is a risk that the harvesting process can scoop the insect up along with the secretion, leading to its death. The natural coloration of lac residue is greatly influenced by the sap consumed by the lac insect and the season of the harvest. Generally in the trade of seedlac there are two distinct colors: the orange Bysacki and the blonde Kushmi."
Click to expand...

We stand informed AND corrected!:)
PP.
 
How durable is this shellac supposed to be? The finish on my refurb'd SVT-40 is horribly fragile, and is flaking off wherever the sling happens to contact the stock.
 
1851 Navy said:
How durable is this shellac supposed to be? The finish on my refurb'd SVT-40 is horribly fragile, and is flaking off wherever the sling happens to contact the stock.
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That's because the post-war refurbs done in Ukraine (like most russian Mosins and SVT's in Canada are) were finished with older, deteriorated shellac which tends to flake off easily.

I have a few Mosins with original ww2 shellac on them, it is nowhere near as fragile.

If you have a ruined stock, try an experiment. Get the proper dewaxed Garnet shellec from shellac.net - this is the exact shellac used in ww2 Russia. Make a 2# cut or so, using denatured alcohol and brush it on with a good quality brush, then let it dry a couple days. LIGHTLY sand it with 400 grit or so, and then put on a second and possibly even third coat.

You will be AMAZED how much better it will be than the refurb shellac and it will tend to not flake off.

CAVEAT: don;t refinish anything collectible just for the sake of refinishing!!!
 
Thank you all very much. :D I have looked at Garnet shellac at shellac .net and am checking in to haveing some shipped. My bigest misstake was reading a thread about refinishing a enfield and thinking the same would work with my Russians:eek: I won't make that misstake again:rolleyes: anyway thanks agian
 
1851 Navy said:
How durable is this shellac supposed to be? The finish on my refurb'd SVT-40 is horribly fragile, and is flaking off wherever the sling happens to contact the stock.
Click to expand...

Shellac is never as durable as other types of finishes. Cherish the flakyness. It is part of its history just the same.
 
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