I may get pummeled for this, but here goes:
I have a force-matched 1943 Mosin with fugly, poorly finished wood with no cartouches and a mismatched bayonet. The wood is blotchy, and the stain isn't applied evenly. Everybody at the range I go to has either an SKS or Mosin and 75% of them have been refurbed using Minwax or the like. I wanted something a little different. I'm in the process of stripping, sanding, and Duracoating my Mosin.
The way I see it, the rifle has no collector's value. It has no historic value. It shoots surprisingly well for a rifle that was already retired when I was born. As my first centerfire bolt action, it has sentimental value and I'll likely never sell it. While I love beautiful wood, I'm going to give it a solid color finish that appeals to me.
So here's what we started with:
I stripped off the finish using some heirloom furniture stripper from a previous job. It worked pretty well. I then sanded the wood (heavily around the front barrel band because its scraped the wood when I remove it) working my way from 80 to 400 grit. I'll probably go to 600 (overkill?) but I want a really smooth finish.
Here's what it looks like at the 400 grit stage. As I mentioned, if this wood was a girl, she'd be sitting at home with her cats on a Friday night:
I'm waiting on the Duracoat right now. The plan is as follows:
- Sand to 600 grit
- Degrease thoroughly - is TSP good to use? Then let it dry for a day or two
- Apply Durafil to seal it up and hide some of the grain
- Apply Duracoat - might need two coats
Advice? Suggestions? Am I missing something?
Thanks,
P
UPDATE: the wood's been sanded to 600 grit (probably overkill), and degreased using TSP. Since then, I've only handled it using a cloth or cotton gloves.
I mixed up a batch of Durafil filler and it worked out nicely. I practiced on some scrap lumber I had laying around before attempting to work on the stock. I used Durafil because the grain of the wood was pretty pronounced and I want an extremely uniform finish.
I used the Passche H airbrush that Duracoat sells. It worked out quite nicely with my small pancake compressor. I used lacquer thinner to clean it with and that worked well.
Here is the end result after spraying the Durafil:
Note one of the posterboards I used to practice before working on the real deal. I did the handguard before attempting the full stock and I was very pleased with the results. I waited the four hours to sand it down and it came out perfectly: very smooth with no dimples, waves, or grain.
More to come tomorrow when I sand and color the stock.
P
