Color for Yugo SKS wood stock.

[stchman]

Hello all.

I recently bought a Yugo SKS un-issued, un-fired. It was still packed in cosmoline.

I cleaned the metal and stock up. The stock is un-finished. After I lightly sand it down I need to stain it before I apply Tru-Oil to it.

What is a good traditional color for Yugo SKS stocks?

I would like some recommendations.

 

[aka108]

Unfinished was probably the way they would have been issued. A lot of the com-bloc rifles had some garish red stain and varnish that is disgusting in appearance. Since you have it sanded and ready to stain, get walnut oil based stain and some satin finish tung oil and it will look nice when you are done with the project. I did one rifle with Tru-Oil years ago but found tung was easier to work with and does have good durability.

 

[stchman]

I have not yet sanded the stock. I used 409 and hot water with an iron to steam the cosmoline out of the stock.

There seems to be a somewhat dark discoloration of the wood near the butt of the rifle. I think a darker stain will cover the discoloration up.

I will sand it down to a 220 grit finish and apply some walnut stain. I have never worked with tung oil. I have heard you can get really good results with Tru-Oil.

So that was one vote for walnut.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Tro oil is a polymerized tung oil, good product, you can run into some trouble if the cosmo is still wet, heavily saturated in the stock, the oil won't penetrate,

HOT water and paint thinner has always worked for me, Using an iron to steam it off would probably work better than the shower does, but you might want to be careful not to steam out stock marking (if you care about such thing), after wards i wipe it down with paint thinner to get the last of the gunk out, or you can just let it dry.

Yellow or red are the usual color of SKS stocks.