Saving the ROO, Restoration part #1

[GunnyUSMC]

I call this one Saving the ROO because, that is what I was asked to do.
The stocks are for a Lithgow No.1 MkIII and are made of Coach Wood. They were covered in a varnish and had a few problems.
I was asked to make repairs, restore the stock set to a correct finish and most of all, to save the Roo stamp that was on the buttstock.

One of the problems I was facing was that the stock had been sanded and refinished and that I would have to strip the stock to remove the finish that was on it.

I also had to remove a lot of old heavy scratches.

The hand guards had some old repairs that needed to be adressed also.

The first step in the restoration was to remove the old incorrect finish.

You never know what you will find when you clean up a stock and this one had a few problems.

The forestock was cracked on both sides just in front on the rear sight protector.

The bottom of the mag well was in poor shape with a large splinter on the inside lip, a splinter on the outside edge and a crushed spot.

As some of ya'll know, I use Acraglas to make my repairs. I would have to say that these came out perty good.

Next was the hand guards.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Saving the ROO, Restoration part #2

I cleaned as much of the old glue out of the cracks as I could with out doing more damage to the area. I then filled the cracks and reinforced the area from the inside.









Now we come to the ROO.

I was also asked to try and remove the large mark on the side of the ROO. I was able to remove a good bit of it but not all. To remove more of it then I did would have caused more damage to the ROO.

I used a wood file to remove the deep scratches from the stock.

I then did a very light sanding to remove the file markings and then did an Oil Scrub Finish on the stock with BLO and topped it off with two coats of Tom's 1/3 mix.



This was a fun stock to work on and a joy to restore. The key to the finish is not to make the stock look new but, to make it look like it has been well used, but taken care of.

 

[LoonWulf]

Very nicely done, as always its a pleasure to see your work.

 

[Old Dog Man]

Saving the Roo

I've found when restoring old stock the dark spots can be bleached back to the original color by cutting a lemon in half and rubbing the stripped wood with the lemon. I guess it's the citric acid that makes it work. Store the lemon in a zip-lock bag and can re-use until you get the stains out. Al

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I have used that trick from time to time, but sometimes you don't want to remove all traces of history.
When restoring a stock for a rifle, that will only be cleaned and not refinished, you want the stock to look correct with the metal.
You wouldn't want to make the stock all pretty and end up with a pig in a prom dress.