the other day i was shooting p-dogs with some buddies. at the end of the day my friends rifle fell onto mine. it left three fairly deep scratches on the butt. im sick about this and would like some tips on filling the scratches and staining them again with out doing the whole gun. its 30 years old and was in mint condition. would like to keep original finish on it. any help is greatly appreciated.
wood stock repair question?
- Thread starter jhuwa
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Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Hi! Sorry to hear about the damage. What kind of rifle is it, and what style of finish?
-Sam
-Sam
find out what your stock is made what kinda wood i mean... then buy some and buy some stain and work to see how close you can match the stain... if you can match it very closely then you can proced to sand down the entire stock with rough sand paper and as the old finish is removed go down to finer and finer sandpaper with proper sanding around the sracthed area to flatten and sand out the sracthes ... depending on the wood of your stock it may not be stained it may only be oiled .. either way after your done sanding and the stock is silky smoothe either stain to the tint desired or rub in the oil till desired shade.... also i suggest tru oil .... also even if the stock needs to be stained after staining the stock it should be oiled with tru oil and stock sheen...
Match14
Member
Are they real deep? If not you may be able to get them out.
Anyway I have ironed out dings on a m14 stock before. Just take a iron and set it to a high steam setting, then take a cloth fold it up once or twice, place it over the dings and iron it for a while. The hot steam will cause the wood to expand which may diminish/remove the dings/scratches depending on how deep they are.
My experience was that afterward the finish in the steamed area will need to be redone. But on an m14 stock all I needed to do was rub some boiled linseed oil in for the finish.
Good Luck.
Anyway I have ironed out dings on a m14 stock before. Just take a iron and set it to a high steam setting, then take a cloth fold it up once or twice, place it over the dings and iron it for a while. The hot steam will cause the wood to expand which may diminish/remove the dings/scratches depending on how deep they are.
My experience was that afterward the finish in the steamed area will need to be redone. But on an m14 stock all I needed to do was rub some boiled linseed oil in for the finish.
Good Luck.
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Sorry if I wasn't clear. Gun stocks can be a variety of different woods, though walnut is pretty much the most common. But various manufacturers have used all kinds of different finishes -- from stains and dyes to color the wood itself, to various surface finishes -- varnishes, polyurethane blends and such -- to simple linseed oil rubbed in well in many applications.
Remington has used a variety of finishes as well. My BDL had a super high-gloss finish (like an old Weatherby) that I kind of hated because it was shiny and also got damaged so easily. Most of the time, top coat applications like glossy polyurethane are very hard to fix.
If the damage is a DENT, where the wood fibers are compressed but not sheared through, steaming the surface with an iron can get those to "pop" back up to a degree. If the fibers are cut (and when you say "scratch" that's what I think you mean) then steaming won't do a lot of good, but it's easy and you might as well try.
To make them really disappear, you'll probably need to strip the stock and refinish it. Before going to that extreme, try the simpler stuff first.
You may be happy enough, if you simply apply a bunch of coats of dark brown paste wax and buff it out. You can build at least a little bit of finish back that way and often make the scratches unnoticeable enough to live with.
If you've really scratched all the way down to bare wood that looks lighter than the rest of the stock, you may want to start with stain pens. You can buy them at Home Depot or Lowes and they're like an old-school permanent market but full of (usually Minwax) wood stain. You won't match the color exactly, but that doesn't matter so much. You really only need to darken it a bit (go with lighter rather than darker, here) and get the shade of brown/red close. Then wax it and the scars will be about as unnoticeable as you're going to get.
Good luck!
-Sam
Remington has used a variety of finishes as well. My BDL had a super high-gloss finish (like an old Weatherby) that I kind of hated because it was shiny and also got damaged so easily. Most of the time, top coat applications like glossy polyurethane are very hard to fix.
If the damage is a DENT, where the wood fibers are compressed but not sheared through, steaming the surface with an iron can get those to "pop" back up to a degree. If the fibers are cut (and when you say "scratch" that's what I think you mean) then steaming won't do a lot of good, but it's easy and you might as well try.
To make them really disappear, you'll probably need to strip the stock and refinish it. Before going to that extreme, try the simpler stuff first.
You may be happy enough, if you simply apply a bunch of coats of dark brown paste wax and buff it out. You can build at least a little bit of finish back that way and often make the scratches unnoticeable enough to live with.
If you've really scratched all the way down to bare wood that looks lighter than the rest of the stock, you may want to start with stain pens. You can buy them at Home Depot or Lowes and they're like an old-school permanent market but full of (usually Minwax) wood stain. You won't match the color exactly, but that doesn't matter so much. You really only need to darken it a bit (go with lighter rather than darker, here) and get the shade of brown/red close. Then wax it and the scars will be about as unnoticeable as you're going to get.
Good luck!
-Sam
makarovnik
Member
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- Jul 8, 2006
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Iron and water works great for dents and dings and sometimes for scratches. You can also use shellac sticks. They sell them at Brownell's and you just heat them up a drip them into the scratch.
For little scratches try liquid gold furniture polish or equivalent.
For little scratches try liquid gold furniture polish or equivalent.
fireman 9731
Member
+1 for the stain pens
Then maybe a tiny bit of clear fingernail polished rubbed in a few times depending on the finish might do the trick.
Then maybe a tiny bit of clear fingernail polished rubbed in a few times depending on the finish might do the trick.
Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Yup! Try that, but place a hot iron on the towel right over the damage. That's what's meant by "steaming out" the dent. Sorry if we all didn't make that clear. PT is on the right track.
But, once it's dry again, you'll probably want to deal with the color (stain pens) and the smoothness of the surface (wax, shellac sticks, fingernail polish, etc).
-Sam
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