Wood Gunstock Refinishing

[swinters]

I've been digging trying to find info on refinishing the wood on one of my shotguns and can only find bits and pieces, most of which are about how to camouflage rifles.  I went to some paint stores, a local gun shop, and Cabela's and struck out too.  Lots of ideas but they all seem to start with "Well, I would think-".  I do a lot of painting and have top-notch equipment for both large and small projects but have done very little on wood and have never done a gunstock so have no idea where to start.  My questions are things like: is it best to chemically strip the old finish; what stain (and color), if any, to use; what finish is correct to handle the types of use and exposures a hunting rifle or shotgun sees and so on.  Does anyone have a link, know of a book on it or have any experience with it?  I certainly hate the thought of learning the hard way ("been there/done that" WAY too much over the years!).

[Wazukie]

A wood gun stock is just that"wood", so general wood working practices would be applicable.  If it has checkering, then you will need to decide what to do with that.  One option would be to sand around the checkering.

I refinished an old stock on a rifle that was my fathers, I sanded the stock down then refinished it with Birchwood-Casey Tru-oil gunstock finish.  One thing to make sure before you do anything is find out if refinishing will change the value at all.  Some old guns you never want to do anything to them to refinish.

[lostbackpacker]

chemically strip the old finish.  you can do the checkering also.  sand it, stain it(or au natural), seal it(poly), sand it, seal it, sand it, seal it.    see a pattern here.  just use progressively finer sand paper.  the last sanding i would prob do 1000 grit or 1500 grit. dont sand the checkering at all. try and make sure the wood is room temp before you spray it(seal). 

Never done this, but you could have an automotive clearcoat finish put on it.  my buddy has done that for certain rifles. 

[gaddy]

dont know if i would go with automotive finish as i dont know if its compatable with any stains you would use & if i did i would make sure they put flex additive in it.
personally i would stay with wood products

[high country]

What is the current finish and wood? What do you want to end up with......serviceable or stunning.....I like tru oil type finishes, hand rubbed thin coats and worked into the grain.....some like the browning polyurethane look.

[CastleRocker]

I'm a hand rubbed Tru-Oil fan myself.  This is what has worked for me.  I'm not a gunsmith; just an old commercial fisherman/logger, so my methods my be wrong....but like I said, this is what has worked best for me. 

I use Easy Off Oven Cleaner to take the old finish off.  I buy it at the liquidation place in town or get it at garage/estate sales on the last day for free.  I spray it on the stock out in the garage, then put it in the shower stall, (also out in the garage) until the finish is running off.  Rinse, then repeat until all the original finish is gone.  Wash with soap and water.  Then dry in the house for a week or so.  Smell it, if it smells like Easy Off, then wash it again with soap and water.  Then dry it all over again.  Steam out all the dents, and sand out all the scratches.  Remember; 90% of a good finish is the prep work. 

Then rub in a coat of Tru-Oil.  Let cure for a day, then sand and repeat.  I let it cure for at least a day in between coats.  After all the pores in the wood are filled in, then start using finer and finer sandpaper. The more coats you put on, the "deeper" the finish will look. 

I put 65 coats on a shotgun once, and it was the best stock I've ever done.  I still kick myself for selling that one!  It took me about an hour every other evening after work...all winter long.  It looked like the Polyurethane finish on a Browning or an old Weatherby when done.

Good luck and show us the finished product!  There is certain amount of satisfaction in doing it yourself.  Best of all, if you screw up, use the Easy Off again!

[lostbackpacker]

dont know if i would go with automotive finish as i dont know if its compatable with any stains you would use & if i did i would make sure they put flex additive in it.
personally i would stay with wood products

I don't think I would use it either on one of my rifles.  For one, it would make it very shiny and stick out like a sore thumb.  I think my buddy was using it because of the durable finish.  he could just hose it off. 

[swinters]

I really appreciate the info!  A couple of people PM'd some links, too, so I've been going over them as well.  From what I see Tru-oil is the product to use.  Some say that the first couple of coats should be thinned with linseed oil so that it soaks in deeper and better protects the wood, and then do a couple more coats full strength.  That sounds like a good idea - has anyone ever done it that way?  Tru-oil (Birchwood Casey) has a pamphlet on their website on the refinishing procedure but it doesn't address thinning.  There are other things that seem to be consistent, such as that chemically stripping is the recommended method.  Some say oven cleaner is okay, others say it leave chemicals in the wood that will harm the final finish.  I use oven cleaner a lot when I do old car restorations and the ticket with it is a really good washing after using it so as long as you were careful to do that I would think that would work fine and a lot of folks seem to do it.  I generally do wood stripping with Citristrip, and then use their neutralizing wash, and my finishes have always come out nice so will probably use that - especially since there's some on the shelf in my shop leftover from a Jaguar dash project I did for a guy.  They say to stay away from metal scrapers and use plastic or you're likely damage the wood.  Then, follow the stripping with steaming the dents and dings using an iron and a clean old rag.  Some recommend wrapping the wood with a denatured alcohol soaked rag (dries fast), others say to use a rag dampened with water.  I'd be concerned with the alcohol since it would remove natural oils from the wood, though you'd be pretty much replacing them with the Tru-oil.  They say that you then should lightly sand (always using a sanding clock, and no more sanding than necessary) with 280 grit, then fine steel wool, after steaming - except the checkering, which should never be sanded.  There are tools (checkering files) for reworking the checkering if needed.  One or two articles mentioned checkering oil and I haven't researched that yet.  There's also disagreement on whether or not to use the stripper on the checkering so I'm not sure which way to go there either.  That pretty much leaves three questions: whether or not to use alcohol for steaming; whether or not to use stripper on the checkering; and what is checkering oil?.  Any ideas?  I can't say enough how much I appreciate the responses!

[FisherKing]

You might all laugh but I've used satin boat varnish before with good results. You always have to protect the checking but boat varnish's are tough and have a High UV resistance. Whether its appropriate according to gun makes I have no idea. It looked cool though.