This last weekend, I decided to tackle a stock refinishing project. Some time ago, I acquired a Winchester Model 75 target rifle that had a few defects. One was that some idiot had electric-penciled his SSN right under the serial number. After some work with fine sandpaper and cold blue, I managed to remove that satisfactorily. The other defect was a stock that had some nicks and gouges, and a really awful bletch-yellow color. I know it wasn't walnut, but maybe birch - I'm not enough of a wood-worker to tell you. At any rate here's a picture of it:
Now my experience with stock refinishing has been mostly limited to military guns (with boiled linseed oil), and a few sporting guns with Linspeed. However, I thought I'd tackle this one with walnut stain and Tung oil. The first step was stripping the old finish and sanding out the nicks and gouges:
The next step was "whiskering" the stock. It's an old technique. Basically, it involves wetting the bare wood with wet cloth, and then heating it over a stove or other heat source. What this does is raise wood "whiskers" on the stock, which are then sanded off. This process is repeated until the stock is ultra-smooth. As you can see, I left the buttplate on while sanding, to protect the close fit of the wood and metal.
Next, the stock was stained with a darker stain. I'm afraid the staining was not uniform, due to the strange wood I was working with, but I decided to go ahead and see what the effect would be. Here is the stain application:
Next, the Tung oil was applied, allowed to dry for 24 hours, and then smoothed down with fine steel wool. The steel wool fibers were then wiped from the wood, and another coat of Tung oil was applied. This continued for four applications.
Here's the final result. While I like the effect to some degree, I would have been happier with a more even color. I'm not sure it could have been achieved with this wood. Even with the original Winchester finish, the appearance was somewhat blotchy. At any rate, I finished up with a coat of Renaissance Wax to protect the final finish. I do like it a great deal more than the original bletch yellow color! At some point in the future, I may revert to Linspeed - we'll see. Maybe some of you more skilled wood-workers could offer some suggestions.
John
Now my experience with stock refinishing has been mostly limited to military guns (with boiled linseed oil), and a few sporting guns with Linspeed. However, I thought I'd tackle this one with walnut stain and Tung oil. The first step was stripping the old finish and sanding out the nicks and gouges:
The next step was "whiskering" the stock. It's an old technique. Basically, it involves wetting the bare wood with wet cloth, and then heating it over a stove or other heat source. What this does is raise wood "whiskers" on the stock, which are then sanded off. This process is repeated until the stock is ultra-smooth. As you can see, I left the buttplate on while sanding, to protect the close fit of the wood and metal.
Next, the stock was stained with a darker stain. I'm afraid the staining was not uniform, due to the strange wood I was working with, but I decided to go ahead and see what the effect would be. Here is the stain application:
Next, the Tung oil was applied, allowed to dry for 24 hours, and then smoothed down with fine steel wool. The steel wool fibers were then wiped from the wood, and another coat of Tung oil was applied. This continued for four applications.
Here's the final result. While I like the effect to some degree, I would have been happier with a more even color. I'm not sure it could have been achieved with this wood. Even with the original Winchester finish, the appearance was somewhat blotchy. At any rate, I finished up with a coat of Renaissance Wax to protect the final finish. I do like it a great deal more than the original bletch yellow color! At some point in the future, I may revert to Linspeed - we'll see. Maybe some of you more skilled wood-workers could offer some suggestions.
John
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I am reformed and now a believer.
