Stock Refinishing

[mthom1957]

I am refinishing a stock on an old CVA kit gun. I had to reshape the stock to fit the buttplate removing a fair amount of wood to do so. The problem is there is a good bit of shaded wood on the rest of the gun due to the previous stain used. I don't dare sand any more on these areas so is there any way to blend these areas with the really blonde areas where I took alot of wood off the stock?
Thanks
mthom

 

[nicholst55]

Your best bet will be to strip the stock, stain it all to match and then refinish. There are too many different methods of doing both to go into here, but I like to use Formby's Furniture Refinisher to strip oil-based finishes, and Minwax stains to stain with. Both should be available locally.

 

[mthom1957]

The stock has already been sanded to finish stage so stripper wouldn't help now or would it?

 

[nicholst55]

The stock has already been sanded to finish stage so stripper wouldn't help now or would it?

Quite possibly; the Formby's that I mentioned usually leaves you with clean wood - depending on what types of stain and finish were used initially.

 

[nitetrane98]

If you are down to bare wood and are still seeing stains chances are good that it was an anihline dye that was used to darken the wood. If it is a tight grained wood like birch or maple the pigmented stains like Minwax will not do much because there is no place for the pigment to stick into to. Almost all finishes these days, especially on a CVA kit gun are done by dying the wood with a dye of one or more colors and then using a tinted finish to darken the entire piece. This is how they can make the color look so uniform on an otherwise ugly piece of wood. I think a stripper with methylene chloride might remove the dye. This is the bad boy stuff, though it is quite watered down from what it used to be. I wouldn't waste my time and money on Homer Formby stuff on what is likely to be a pre-catalyzed finish. It simple won't work. Same as all of the other "green" stuff like orange concentrate etc. If you really want to get the old dye out you can always use an AB wood bleach solution and go back however you want. It all depends upon your level of expectations and how much you want to invest in time and money and how good you want the stock to look.

 

[Ex Nola]

Try wood Bleach (oxalic acid) on the bare wood. It will tend to open up the grain of the wood, so you will have to do some filling & sanding.