Good job! Share the refinishing technique with us?
Thanks for all your compliments on the stock finishing!
Okay, so I'm going to describe the process I used to refinish the stock on this M38 rifle. This one was NOT done using a French polish technique like the other one.
Items you will need:
1. Shellac flakes (I used dark garnet flakes from Wood Essence in Sask)
2. Methanol (Very poisonous. Real all warnings on the label! Other alcohols may work, but are more expensive or harder to find)
3. An organic vapor respirator would be a good idea when working with methanol. I used one.
4. Disposable gloves. I used vinyl ones from Rona. You could probably use nitrile or latex too.
5. Circa 1850 Furniture Stripper and a cheap paintbrush to slather it on. Nasty stuff! Read the warnings! Use natural hair...it melts foam.
6. A small brass brush (toothbrush size or a little larger)
7. Disposable foam paintbrushes (I used 1.5" wide ones). High quality paintbrushes could work too, but that's not what I used.
8. Assorted sandpaper, depending on the condition of your stock. You want to end with at least 320 grit.
9. Paper towels and soft lint-free rags (old t-shirts should be fine).
10. Optional: Wood stain in the colour of your choice. I used Minwax "Gunstock" colour, oil based stain.
11. An accurate scale helps for weighing the shellac flakes.
12. Foam backed scouring pad, Mr Clean Magic Eraser, and liquid hand soap.
The procedure:
- Mix the shellac flakes in a clean glass jar. They take a long time to dissolve in the methanol, so do this first. I used 29 grams of flakes in 100 ml of methanol. This is a fairly thin mixture... I think it would be roughly a 1/4lb cut, as they say. (or just a little over). It takes HOURS to dissolve. You won't need it for at least 24 hours if you are doing the staining step.
- Disassemble firearm and remove metal parts from wood. I left in the metal pieces where the sling goes.
- Remove any grease or cosmoline. I used a hairdryer and paper towels. This took a couple hours.
- Use Circa 1850 furniture stripper to remove old finish. I did this by painting it on with a brush and then gently brushing it off with the brass brush. This also helps to get rid of some more grease from the wood.
- Depending on the condition of the stock, you may wish to do some sanding to improve it. On my 91/30, I didn't, on the M38, I did because it had already been through a refurb process and the markings were mostly gone or very faint.
- Apply stain if you're using it. Just follow the directions on the can. I put it on with a rag, wiped off the excess, and let it try for 24 hours before doing anything else. It should feel dry to the touch before you proceed.
- Now, the fun/tricky part, applying the shellac. I would suggest you get a scrap piece of wood and do this until you're happy with the results. Prepare the wood the same as the stock, so stain it if you used stain. Anyway, start by dipping your foam brush into the shellac mixture and remove some of the excess. Then, you brush it onto the wood in a slow and steady motion, trying to keep a layer of fluid running off the brush. If you go too fast, you get bubbles, too slow, or hesitant, and you might get uneven or rough spots in the shellac. It dries quickly while you work, which doesn't help at all! Practice practice practice! It also might run, in which case you need to go back over it, but quickly before it dries (you have maybe 15 seconds). Your goal is to get one THIN coat on the wood. You're going to do this at least 7 times, so don't expect it to look great after one coat. Many thin and even layers is what you want, with no bubbles.
You don't need to sand between coats. You can do about three or four coats, an hour apart. Then you'll want to leave it for about 24 hours to make sure it fully hardens. Now do a couple more coats, an hour apart and let it harden for 24 hours again.
- Now, it's not going to be perfect. So, what we want to do is smooth it out a bit. The shellac must be fully dried for this step or it will be a disaster. Get the foam backed scouring pad (a fine one...I use this instead of steel wool) and wet it, and put some liquid hand soap on it as a lubricant. Use this to polish the shellac. Don't scrub too hard, but hard enough that you're removing some shellac. Again, you should practice this on your scrap wood. Next, do the same thing with the Mr. Clean Magic eraser. It's "melamine foam" which is a fine abrasive. This will remove the fine scratches from the scouring pad. You can scrub pretty hard with this one.
Keep polishing it with the scouring pad followed by magic eraser until you are happy with the finish. You should be able to remove small runs or wrinkles this way. If you scour through the shellac, you might have to start over... I was scrubbing like a demon and I didn't make it through...it's pretty tough, but be careful.
- Use a wet rag to wipe the soap away, and then dry the stock. Leave it for a while to make sure it is completely dry.
- At this point, you may have a finish you're happy with. Consider coating it with a wood finishing wax.
- In my case, I added one more coat of shellac, and this made it shine like a mirror, and have a nice smooth feel in the hands. When you've got a good base of shellac, and you've polished it, this final coat is pretty easy to apply, and keep smooth.
That's pretty much it! This whole process took me several days, with the drying times etc...
This differs from the French polish that I did on the other gun in that the shellac is applied with a foam brush and then polished in a, shall we say "non-traditional" method. For a French polish, well, you can read a million other web pages about that, but basically the shellac is applied by rubbing it in with a cloth pad that is soaked in shellac and lubricated with a bit of olive oil.
The nice thing about the finish that I've described here is that you could change it later to a "french polish" by using a cloth pad with some methanol, oil, and a bit of fine pumice. Basically you'd just have to polish the heck out of it and you should get a slightly different look and feel.
Anyway, this "non-traditional" method produced a very shiny and smooth finish. It looks kind of like polyurethane, but with the nicer and more natural feel of shellac. Poly just feels like you're holding a piece of plastic in your hands. Shellac feels like a red rifle should feel.
Well, I better hit save before my computer craps out and I lose this!...hehehe Good luck!
