Stock Project Help

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spenbour

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Hello,

I have an old cheap USSR Baikal single break action and would like to make it my first budget friendly project. I believe it has a walnut stock, or whatever would be used in the 80's. I really like the look of the dark red soviet arms so I would like to imitate it. Does anyone know what available products I can use to strip the stock and maybe lighten the surface? Any staining techniques out there? Maybe some tricks of the trade? What works well for a semi or high gloss finish?

Cheers
 
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I recently finished my first project. I have little experience with woodworking, but i think it turned out well. I stripped, sanded and used tru oil for the finish. I got most of my info from youtube, but there is some good info and very knowledgeable folks on here.

Some things I learned:
-you can steam out dents with an iron (use a wet towel) or just pour boiling water over the area (make sure it completely dries afterwards)
-wet sand with truoil to fill in the grains for a smooth stock (3-400grit)
-it didn't turn out as dark as I had hoped, but I read that you can stain it then use truoil on it (I know you said you wanted to lighten the surface, just thought I'd throw that in)
 
Corca 1850 works very well, is harmless to the wood underneath and can be found just about anywhere that sells wood finishing products, I’ve always found it at Canadian tire. Stain will hide the wood grain as your just adding pigments to the surface, dyes will give colour without hiding the grain. One can easily bleach wood and can then stain/dye to your desire. tru-oil is very easy to use and gives a high gloss but it isn’t a very tough finish. Leave the sand paper for knocking down raised grain and making slurry to fill pores, sand paper shouldn’t be used to strip old finish, that’s bubba territory. Here is the shade of minwax kanlooky was talking about

2nbslqb.jpg

,
 
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If you really want the red rifle stock finish look, check out lee valley for shellac crystals. You can tint them darker red iirc, you might want to post in the red rifles forum as well, there have been a few refinished sks, T81 stocks posted there and you’ll get some how to help I bet. Shellac is what they used when they refurbished rifles, I’ve used it to refinish a heavily sanded sks stock and it’s easy to work with.
 
I once mixed a bit of metallic red spray paint with tung oil and refinished a stock with it, turned out awesome, but it may have been a fluke. The colour shown above looks like a very red, red.
 
spenbour said:
How about coloured dyes? Really going for a deep dark red like you see on some SKS's, How should I strip the original finish?
Click to expand...


dyes are great (you can get aniline dyes from lee valley) you can mix and tint to whatever colour you want - if it's not what you like, keep applying. I use mostly mahogany red, mahogany brown and 'red for tinting' in my stocks. things to think about:

- all the original finish needs to be "gone" or you will get blotches
- dyes (mostly) are not UV safe, you will need a sealer or some kind of UV safe top coat (dyes are mostly used by luthiers - ever seen a guitar shop without a UV screen in the front window?)
- dyes come in water, alcohol and oil based. water is the most forgiving.
- dye sounds expensive when you look at the $$ tag, but 2 years later I am still working on all the dye I bough with no end in sight.... it goes a looooong way :)

with a dark wood like walnut, you are going to have to add a lot of pigment to see a colour change, a stain may actually be the way to go (since I am assuming that the wood probably does not have 'presentation grade' figure to it.) stain will also be easier and faster.

while shellac has wonderful properties, easy to work with levels well and looks great, it is not durable. if you want a pretty wall hanger, go for it, if you want to shoot the gun go with a polymerized finish, oils, varnish or lacquer. (the solvent for shellac is alcohol, so don't spill your beer or any sort of bore solvent on it!)


stipping the original finish? figure out what the existing finish is, then use the appropriate solvent for it.

your finishing options are vast and varied - depends on what you want the end result to look like, high gloss is work intensive, use a polymerised tung sealer followed by finish of the same, a more traditional flat look ... just a few (2/3) applications of a pure tung or linseed (tung cures faster than linseed ~slightly
you want that flat look to have a bit of sheen to it? wax.

- pure oils (tung or linseed) by themselves will never give you a gloss finish
- polymerized oils will give you the finish stated on the can/jar/whatever, semi-gloss or gloss
- tru-oil *is* a polymerized linseed oil.
- I have no experience with varnishes or lacquers , so I can't speak to that.
- shellac is absolutely beautiful to work with and behold. but not appropriate for a gun.
- if you need to seal pores, the aforementioned tru-oil sanding method will work, but you fill the pores with particles, a sealer will give you 100% better results, though if the wood has no figure, it really does not matter.

1. tru-oil is fast, easy and readily available
2. everything else is a lot more work
3. you can use ANY of the above finish/combination of finishes, waxes/sealers over a dye job.
 
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