No bad advice so far.


1) Flaking, along with yellow dust/mud when you sand/strip it, is the sure sign that lacquer was used. Virtually all mass-produced stocks on all handguns and long guns from the 30's to the 60's were lacquered.

2) Chemical stripping is good. Be patient. Use a tongue depressor and/or Xacto knife for scraping the softened finish. Use scotchbrite and/or steel wool in the later stages.

3) Checkering, if it exists, is/was always done last, after the applied finish is cured. Therefore, if it present, it should be masked during refinishing. Cover it with blue painters tape then trace around the border with an Xacto knife. Lastly, remove the tape and a couple coats of thinned finish can be applied to seal the checkering wihout filling it up. Gloppy finish in checkering is just wrong.

4)Spray lacquer is by far the easiest to apply and easiest to get great results. Use a few thin coats and only under low-humidity; 50% humidity is a good benchmark. A second product that can be thinned and hand applied (pipe cleaners are good for this) is best to seal the checkering. Flood it with thin finish, let it soak only a minute or two and and dab out the excess with paper towel or cloth rag. Only 2/3 thin coats are required. When the checkering takes on a faint shine, you're done ... wood is sealed, checkering is still sharp.

5) Polyurethane is not bad. Almost as easy to apply as lacquer. More durable. Top notch resistance to water, gun oils and skin oil. Sits on top of the wood (like lacquer) and, therefore, doesn't penetrate, wet and darken the wood if you want to "freeze" the light color of freshly prepared wood.

6) Penetrating oils are more labor intensive. They darken the wood slightly, not because they add color but because they wet the wood as they penetrate, such as a white paper towel "darkens" when it gets wet. TruOil is good for maximum durability and high gloss if you're OK with a bit of a "plastic coated" look. Not saying that's bad, just a matter of taste....Remington, Weatherby, etc. taught several generations that it's pretty. Lots of $20,000 trap guns have $5000 wood under what looks like 1/4" of plastic.

If you like a more subdued gloss with less build-up and a finish that appears to be more "in" than "on" the wood, and only slightly less durable than poly or TruOil, then tung oil blends are for you....Formbys, Deft, Watco, Minwax. My favorite is Waterlox sealer.

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