Stock Refinishing

[TimmyXD]

So I picked up a remington 870 express mag earlier this evening and the stock needs some loving. i was thinking about stripping it down completely and restaining and finishing it. Any suggestions or tips on accomplishing this also how do you stain "designs" into the finish (antiquing the grain, muli tone stain patterns, etc.?)

 

[Red Cent]

Something that works well is Armor All and TruOil. This method has been around for a while and I see Birchwood Casey is recommending the process.

Simple. I remove all the old finish with a good paint/urethane remover. After drying, lightly sand with, say, 400 grit. Clean dust, debris from stock.

Apply a few squirts of ArmorAll to the stock and rub it in with finger. Wipe excess off hands ever so often. Before it dries, place a few drops of TruOil on your fingers. Start rubbing. The two react causing the TruOil to firm up with continued rubbing. After a few minutes, you can do this again. I have refinished a couple of stocks this way and they look great. You can coat the stock a number of times in a day. I like the final finish. It looks like hand rubbed furniture with some of the grain coated but not flat and shiny. It will also be a semi gloss finish. If you like the shiny stuff, make the last coat pure TruOil. A couple of drops of TruOil will go a long way. DO NOT APPLY THICK.

I have posted this before and there were some lamenting the combining of the two. But it works.

http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/

Click on sporting goods products.

I use the TruOil by itself. Each coat should be more than 12 hours apart and lightly smoothed with fine steel wool. Make sure it is dry or you will find yourself in a mess.

BC also shows some spray finish product that I have never used. Maybe some members can speak to these products.

 

[Lucifer_Sam]

Klean strip strip-x works well for getting off old finish and stain.

Use blocks when sanding, start with like 180 or 220 then go up. You'll need to whisker the wood.

Not sure what you mean by staining designs or any of that. Stains, dyes and tints are all options to get the wood to look like you want. If I were you I'd find out what type of wood it is, then do searches on finishing that type of wood, keeping an eye out for results that look good. After that get some test wood of the same type to try out techniques before going after the stock.

 

[Red Cent]

LS, you mean foam sanding blocks, right?

 

[Lucifer_Sam]

Nah, I was talking about regular wood/rubber sanding blocks with sandpaper wrapped around them. You dont want to use those on the inlets and such, for those you want to use sandpaper on a dowel. You can end up with an uneven surface sanding with your fingers, they're soft.

I haven't tried the foam blocks, but higher grit ones might be good for sanding down a finish. It would be easy to cut through a finish on a stock with a regular block if you werent careful.

EDIT--I should say that you want to go down the length of the stock with the block, not cross grained or circular motions or anything like that, and I just go one way, from the front to the back. Its kind of like the technique you use when brushing on a finish