Has anyone refinished SAR-1 furniture?? Is it worth it?

[phantomak47]

I am torn between refinishing the furniture on my Sar-1 or buying a new furniture set from K-var. If I end up refinishing the furniture, I plan on adding a vertical foregrip and I would like to stain the wood light red.

Has anyone refinished the wood on a Sar-1? Is the wood crap or is it decent? Will it match up to the foregrip is I buy it seperately?

Or should I just suck it up and spend the 100 bucks on a kvar set??

 

[Poodleshooter]

I stripped my finish down to the fishscale patterned wood grain and then tung oiled it with about 5-10 coats. I refinished because I found the synthetic AK stocks to be a bit pricey for what you get,and I didn't like the heavy lacquer and red color on my SAR-1. If your wood is already mismatched,you'll need to get a fairly good stain or paint it black to cover it. Since mine was mismatched,the tung oil finish didn't really help much. It ended up still mismatched,but still looked better than the deep red/orange that it came in.
Check out www.gunsnet.net for the AK-47 forum. There's lots of advice and pictures there about AK stock work.
Good luck

 

[DMK]

I stripped the handguards on this SAR1 and refinished with "Tung Finish" varnish from Walmart. Personally, I think it was worth the effort. The finish that was on there before was pitiful. One day I'm going to gunkote the thing because the metal finish is almost as bad.

 

[ALASKACAJUN]

I sanded mine down to bare wood the day I got it, then restained it with a Cherry Satin finish... It stunk for about 2 weeks but it looks so much better... The other day a got an old Muaser and did the same thing, boy it came out really nice too....

- Clint

 

[Dionysusigma]

I've refinished mine a few times... And it's the only wood finishing work I've ever done.

First time, I wanted a clear black look to it. I mixed together 1 part turpentine 1 part calligraphy black ink, stained the stock with that, and gave it a few coats of acrylic. Looked okay up until I fired it and the finish melted some.

Second time, I removed all the junky finish I had on there. I sanded everything as smoothly as I could, then took a cheap gas-station cigarette lighter torch and lightly burned the edges of the wood so that I got a look that was, to say the very least, beautiful. You have to go slow and be patient for this, and blend as evenly as possible or else you'll burn a hole right into the wood. I then put on 4-5 thin coats of boiled linseed oil, sanded lightly, and put on one final, very thin coat. The resulting look was breathtaking--a dark color that matched the metal perfectly fading into a rich reddish-brown, with an almost artificially smooth surface.

A few moths ago, I refinished, and used way too much mahogany MinWax stain (which never fully dried, IIRC). I then slathered on a couple of coats of disgustingly thick linseed oil, and it looks atrocious now. The finish is peeling and scratching off, and isn't even hard.

But if you do it right, it looks good. I'm going to re-do mine again, most likely the second way I described.

Or just strip it all, rough-sand it, and use spray-on truck bed liner.

 

[Dionysusigma]

P.S. ...is there any way to thin out BLO if it's thickened itself up?

 

[Kaylee]

Not myself, but a SAR-1 I owned for a while had been beautifully refinished by Nevada Pistolero -- they do clean up surprisingly well!

-K

 

[Camshaft]

i started to refinish my sar-1 one day a few years back. i realized after i got it taken apart that it wasnt worth messing with.

 

[Chipperman]

I did one of mine, and was very pleased with the results.

Here it is before:






Bleeeccchhhhh!!!

 

[Chipperman]

Here is is after:





I tried chemical stripping initially, but it wasn't even touching the cast-iron lacquer finish that was on it. So I got tough and used 60 grit sand paper. I did take off some wood, but it saved me a lot of headache. I got it much smoother, also. I finished stripping with Citristrip. After fine sanding, I applied Minwax antique maple gel stain. I put on three coats, buffing between each. I then applied 3 coats of Tung Oil, alllowing 24 hours of dry time between each and a gentle buffing.
If you look closely at the places where the wood joins metal, you can see that some wood was taken away. Everything still fits tightly though. I am much happier taking it to the range than when I first got it.

 

[Raygun]

I recently refinished the furniture on my SAR-1 as a temporary alternative to buying a K-VAR stock set. All supplies cost $18 and I probably have enough left over to finish twenty more stock sets.

Had no problems chemical stripping the old varnish off. After that, I sanded with 150 then 220 grit paper. Used three coats of Minwax #2718 ebony stain, then three coats of Minwax clear satin fast-drying Polyurethane, light sanding with fine steel wool between coats. Applied all of it with foam brushes.

I've never refinished wood before, just followed the directions on the product labels and asked the girlfriend for advice occasionally. It came out gorgeous, immeasurably better than the original finish. Especially the upper handguard. Smooth as glass.

Wish I had better pictures, but this is the best I can do at the moment.

 

[Camshaft]

chipperman, that looks really nice

 

[Chipperman]

Thanks.

Consider giving yours another chance.