Refinishing wood stocks

majormarine said:
To refinish wood stocks, i know that one has to go 'thru:

- Stripping
- Sealing
- Filling

But can i just skip the filling part? :redface:
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You will get a lot better job in the end if you use the wood sealer and filler.The stock on this rifle has two coats of sealer filler and ten coats of hand rubbed Tru-oil, followed by a light application of stock conditioner and several coats of Birchwood Casey gun stock wax.

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"...skip the filling..." Depends on the wood and what finish you're putting on. If you seal the wood then try to put on an oil finish, the oil won't penetrate. Tung oil, for example, will seal the wood and protect it from moisture.
However, wood is wood. Use the same techniques and products used on fine furniture. Polyurethane isn't used on fine furniture.
Sealing is more important in the barrel channel than on the outside. Even when glass bedding the action. If it's not sealed, the wood will expand and contract according to the moisture in the air. That moves the barrel around changing the POI seasonally at the very least.
 
sunray said:
"...skip the filling..." Depends on the wood and what finish you're putting on. If you seal the wood then try to put on an oil finish, the oil won't penetrate. Tung oil, for example, will seal the wood and protect it from moisture.
However, wood is wood. Use the same techniques and products used on fine furniture. Polyurethane isn't used on fine furniture.
Sealing is more important in the barrel channel than on the outside. Even when glass bedding the action. If it's not sealed, the wood will expand and contract according to the moisture in the air. That moves the barrel around changing the POI seasonally at the very least.
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Ummm.....wrong. I use HVLP applied laquer, WB finishes, Oils, Shellacs, Varnishes, and friction waxes....but sometimes Poly is just what the doctor ordered. On truly "fine" furniture you will more often see rubbed-out poly or shellac than anything else. Most "commercial" furniture is laquer..not because it's better, but because it's cheap/quick to do.

All poly finishes.

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Poly will actually do a much better job of protecting the wood than anything else you can apply without a spray unit. In fact, I prefer to topcoat tung-oil finishes with 3-4 coats of wipe-on poly (regular poly thinned 40% with mineral spirits) because Tung does not offer much water resistance, and virtually zero protection against wear. "Tru oil" is a good product, as it contains both oils and varnish, so you get the best of both worlds....but it still benefits from a poly topcoat,

As far as porefilling? That step is completely cosmetic. If you don't mind the look of open pores, theres no need to fill them. Filling pores really is an easy step though...esp. with walnut. Once you have sanded to 320 or 400, slop on your chosen finish and sand it wet with 400 grit wet/dry (automotive) sandpaper. Once you've sanded it enough, sand it again ;). This will make a "slury" of superfine sawdust and finish, and fill the pores nicely. Sand in little circles until you have pretty much used up all the finish you put on the stock, then allow it to dry. Once cured, lightly sand again (dry) with 400 grit paper or 000 steel wool to remove the haze, then apply your topcoat.

Or

Send it to my shop, and get out your chequebook :D
 
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I am in the process of finishing a stock and have been filling the grain with thinned Spar Varnish. I put a coat of it on, and am in the process of wet sanding it with more deluted spar varnish working it into the grain. I will be finishing it with Tru Oil, will this not penetrate with the spar varnish in the grain?
 
No. The oil will not penetrate the spar. The beauty of the technique I described above is that it is super quick, the pores are exactly the same colour as the rest of the wood, and you get full penetration of the oil.

I',m afraid that anything you put on top of the spar will just wipe off.

A good mix for you to try is known as "Don's secret fisnish"...developed by Don Kondra, another writer for the same WWing mag as me. Dons secret formula is 25% Spar Varnish (not urethane), 25% Tung oil, 50% mineral spirits and 2-3 drops of Japan Drier (available at paint shops). After you have done the slurry pore-filling step, to topcoat just slop on a bunch of this mix, allow to penetrate for 20-30 min, then wipe off the excess. Repeat until you get the level of gloss you like. This is a great finish for stocks, and I have used it on everything from 50 dollar cooeys to 10,000.00 Drillings.
 
All good info in this thread and all will produce good results. I sometimes use a process that I saw in a gunsmithing article many years ago that gives pretty good results. After sanding and whiskering the stock give all surfaces, inside and out a flood coat of urethene varnish thinned 50-50 and allowing the end grain to soak up as much as it will take. Let it dry overnight and then put on a thin coat of full strength urethene on the exterior surfaces (not on the inletted surfaces). Let it dry hard--then take 0000 steel wool and rub the surface down to bare wood. if you angle the stock to the light you will see little shiny speckles where the varnish is down in the pores. dust off the stock and put on another thin coat of full strength urethene, let dry, steel wool. usually 3 coats will fill the pores level--you can tell when they are full when there are no shiny speckles after you steel wool it. After pores are full you then topcoat with Lin Speed or True oil or BLO.

This process works quite well on decent quality wood but if the wood has lots of course pores it will take 5 or 6 coats of urethene to fill them which is a lot of work.

This finish gives better moisture resistance to the stock than straight oil and is as easy to touch up as an oil finish,

44Bore
 
"...cheap/quick to do..." Yep and that's why it's on cheap furniture. An oil finish on a gun stock is far easier to fix than a plastic finish. A bit more oil rubbed in and a scratch is gone. A plastic finish has to be completely re-done.
 
sunray said:
"...cheap/quick to do..." Yep and that's why it's on cheap furniture. An oil finish on a gun stock is far easier to fix than a plastic finish. A bit more oil rubbed in and a scratch is gone. A plastic finish has to be completely re-done.
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Not neccesarrily. If you can determine which finish was used (poly or laquer) you can touch it up very easily. If it is a laquer finish, it's just a matter of applying more. Laquer melts into itself, so a little laquer (or even just laquer solvent depending on the depth of the scratch) will fix it right up. Polys can be repaied quite easily as well. All you do is scuff the area around the scratch to give the finish some "teeth", then apply more poly. It will fill the scratch and scuff marks, then you rub out the finsih to make it all even. Not quite as easy as an oil finish to repair, but far from difficult. No "truly" fine furiture has an oil finish....and there is a reason for that. Shellc and wax (aka French Polish) or Varnish adorned the furniture from the finest makers in modern times (Stickley, Croft, Taig) and Poly is just a natural evolution from these two products as it shares many of the same positive attributes (Ability to adjust gloss, ability to be rubbed out, amber highlights, high level of pretection) with none of the negative ones (ie: resistance to chemicals/alcohol/water).

YMMV, but IMO no one should discount Poly....if applied correctly it is a superior finish to almost anything available....but what do I know.....I only build fine fiurniture for a living.......
 
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I refinished an $8000. Perazzi shotgun for a guy in Edmonton who insisted it be strictly hand rubbed oil finish. OK. So 3 months later he had his wood back and the oil finish truly brought out the grain and scratches are a breeze to repair. But be prepared for a lot of hand rubbing. And I find the best time is after hunting season as you will have the time to get the firearm out of service. The oil will eventually fill the pores and maintainance is usually a dime sized spot of oil on your hands and 45 minutes of hand rubbing. A nice soft terry cloth polishing after two days drying time is a nice touch too.

Labor is a huge cost with hand rubbed finishes. Materials are relatively inexpensive.

Clean stripping and attention to sanding/steel wool polishing of the wood (de-whiskering) is very important. It usually determines how the final product will turn out.

Give it a try and take pics of the process. You will notice. Take your time. We have all seen weekend refinishing projects........

Quick and fast usually means substandard. Although I find TruOil a very good product for lesser value guns and it leaves a very serviceable finish.
 
majormarine said:
To refinish wood stocks, i know that one has to go 'thru:

- Stripping
- Sealing
- Filling
Click to expand...

I'm quite new to this (refinishing, not shooting), but I want to try to fix-up the stock on a Savage 3B I just got. Anyone have idiot-proof stripping tips (for a rifle, you raunchy folk...)?

Also, anyone know how to "buff" rust off of a barrel, or otherwise get rust out?
 
Sure. Just use a store bought gel stripper, lay on a heavy coat then wrap with saran wrap. Let it sit for an hour r two, then remove the finish with medium steel wool. (use a toothbrush on any checkering). Once you have it removed, repeat the above step to make sure you got it all off.

As far as buffing the rust off? If it's not too bad, some ###F (0000) steel wool with a squirt of gun oil on it will do the trick.

Cheers,

Ryan
 
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