Slowly updated SKS wood stock refinishing thread

Thanks guys. I like it a lot better than plain brown. When it's completely dry I'll buff it out a bit with #00 steel wool to get a little variation in the colour. Then add some very dark red (almost black) to a few areas subject to wear and/or heat. Then after that's dry, back to tung oil to give the stock more protection and to give the finish some depth.

I'm looking forward to this and it sucks that it will probably take two weeks to finish it. I need more patience. :)
 
jimbo14 said:
I decided to let the first coat of tung oil cure for almost two days because of all the existing oil in the stock. Since I wanted more red in the stock (this is a "red rifle" after all - lol!) I decided to play with stains.

Simple check: wipe some of the red-brown stain on my sample board of two different shades of tung oil. Since the tung oil will have filled up most of the pores in the stock, it won't allow the stock to turn super red. It will be very dark in the untreated wood on the board.

Finish_SKS_6.jpg



...and here it is.

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Close up:

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Now I need to let this fully dry before the next step. Once I'm done with the colouring, it'll be back to more tung oil until it's finished.
Click to expand...
WOW!
This is turning out 2 be one wicked job ;)
 
ok...I couldn't wait any longer and started playing with the upper handguard. :)

I bought some ebony (black) stain tonight. I was going to use my black artist oil paint as a colourant but decided to stick with a retail stain product because the oil paint has plain linseed oil in it and might take a while to dry. I'm tired of waiting.

So I mixed some black stain with my red-brown stain and after a little buffing with steel wool and then 5 mins of playing with stain, I came up with this. It resembles the (well-used) SVT-40 upper handguard I have with all the heat marks in the finish. I likey. :)

Finish_SKS_10.jpg



Ironically, even though I really love this I won't be using it because I have the aftermarket metal handguard on the rifle. Maybe this will get me to put the wood back....

I'll be playing with the stock over the next several days and then slap on the rest of the tung oil. I really can't wait now. :)
 
Thanks guys. Feel free to send me your rifle, but I don't know when I'll get to it. ;)

After playing with the stock I think "less is more" in this case. So I'm settling on just colouring specific areas. Areas I handle most often when I use it. Here are the latest pics, taken outside to get a little natural light on this very overcast day. The colour reproduction with this camera isn't the best, but it'll give you an idea.

If you want to remove a little colour, then give it a few strokes with some steel wool. To darken some areas to simulate embedded dirt/oils or heat marks, mix up a darker stain colour and dab little bits of stain on the wood and then wipe/blend the stain almost immediately off the wood. It will get progressively darker. It's easy to add more stain - and more of a pita to remove it cleanly. I have three layers on the grip areas.

Finish_SKS_11.jpg


Finish_SKS_12.jpg


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Finish_SKS_14.jpg


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I'm going to touch up a couple very minor things, then allow it to dry for a full day or two before putting on the rest of the polymerized tung oil. The next pics you see will be of the finished rifle.
 
Thanks guys.

One more tip: when doing any fine tuning with stains, take it real slow. See the stain flaw below in the red circle? The black line is a little heavy and stands out. All it took was literally 3 strokes with some steel wool to take the edge off and blend it in.

Finish_SKS_12a.jpg



...now to wait.... I want to make sure all the solvents in the stains have evaporated before sealing everything in with tung oil. I don't like waiting anymore though. :mad:
 
7mmlefty said:
Very nice... I like how the heat shield wood matches the stock. Cant wait to see finished rifle.:)
Click to expand...
Thanks. After I settled on the look of the main stock I held the heat shield wood to it and found I burnished off a bit too much stain, so I carefully added another layer back on before those last pics were taken.
 
Coincidentally I just finished similar project based on Chinese SKS that I recently bought to play with.

Essentially I did all the described steps - shellac stripper, sanding, staining and tung oil. The main differences: I didn't want to darken it much so I used medium brown (looks kind of mahoganysh) and also I used pure tung oil in 4 coats with 48 hour drying periods between them.

Before (the only pic I have):
K491AvGI.jpg


After:
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u16VIySv.jpg

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UlVGUP2w.jpg
 
Thanks guys.
The grain really started to stand out after oiling...

hunterinthewoods: no money for proper quarter round finishing - all in guns)))) Getting life's priorities right!
 
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