Stock Dent Repair

Have read above "stickies", but don't see my problem addressed. Have chance to buy a like new Citori 410 that was dropped and one side of stock has dent about size of 1/4" diameter and 1/8" deep with wood fiber broken. Other side has 1" long 1/16" deep scrap also into and breaks fiber of wood. Not candidate for steam. Thinking filler and stain. Wood is highly figured and hoping it might blend. Hate to completely strip. Like to at least try a "patch" first. Suggestions appreciated. Gun is target model with flat oil-like finish.

Steam First, then try to fill if needed.
If the fiber in the wood is cut, then all of the dent will not steam out, but a good portion of it will.
Like on a recent single shot I posted in one of the single shot threads.
It had a gouge in the forestock.
I steamed the gouge, and raised it almost half of the depth.
Then I filled the dent, and was able to sand almost the entire dent or gouge out.
I thought that the gouge would sand out after sweating, but I filled it anyway, to give the sanding block something to ride on, rather than making a concave in the wood trying to sand on just the gouge.

Will try the steam. Thinking I will take a piece of scrap walnut, make a couple similar blems and then experiment with some fillers and stains to see what they look like.

If you can find a piece that matches up close in grain and can be stained for color a small piece can be inlaid and finished. I would first try the steam. I had a soldering iron with a 3/4" flat iron that was really handy for this. A piece of 3/4" key stock heated and held on a heavy wet patch or rag should do good for heavy dings and dents. The added mass holds the heat longer. A little water applied to the stock may help it swell and raise also.

It is hard and depends on broken fibers. Compressed only can steam out but not broken.
To sand out will ruin the profile.

As was said, steam first.

Second solution, that I have used successfully on figured stocks, is Super Glue. Get the piece level, and carefully put the glue into the depression. Let it dry COMPLETELY. Keep adding until you have it slightly above the surface. Once dry, carefully sand level. A fingernail emery board works fairly well, finished with a finer grade of sand paper wrapped around it. If you are careful, you won't go through the original finish, eliminating the need to restain. Then put some Truoil on your fingertip, and give it a few coats. Dry, and buff out with steel wool. Finish by polishing with a paper towel. If done correctly, the dent is pretty much invisible, if you don't know where to look, and look hard to find it, you will not see it.

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Good luck on your plan, as I've learned the hard way about mending Browning stocks. [smilie=b:

What I learned was that Browning's epoxy finish is very hard to match, and will usually turn frost white when steamed.

A wooden patch (aka: Dutchboy) will usually stand out like a sore thumb :groner: - but the broken grain leaves only two options, AFAIK.

Option 1 would be to sand the wood down below the dent (usually a non-starter).

Option 2 would be to fill the dents with multiple built-up layers of a color matched epoxy.

I found it simpler to strip the stocks, repair the dents/etc, and refinish.


Simplest solution - live with the damage & shoot the snot out of your Citori. :D



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Appreciate all the suggestions. If all else fails, I am thinking a couple small decals.

Another vote for steaming first, about two weeks ago fumble fingers here dropped a newly finished Walnut stock and made a gouge about 3/4" long and 1/16" deep with some torn wood fiber. This was on the underside of the pistol grip on a rifle stock and sanding it out was a major last resort! I decided to steam first and it took a few tries but I was able to raise it enough to sand out all but a tiny bit of the damaged wood, after applying the finish the damage is completely unnoticeable unless someone was looking for it and knew it was there. The wood underneath the torn fiber raised enough to actually lift most of the truly damaged wood high enough to almost sand away, this was an ugly gouge when I started but honestly it is all but unfindable now.

A friend has a knot in his rifle stock in a funny place but it is wood and a a knot is natural and can be filled with finish. Just a beauty mark. He put a silver inlay and it is so out of place it is like pounding tacks in the wood.
A filler works and some claim a clear filler, OK with a thin scratch, commercial fillers suck. Deep needs a filler the same color as the stock. Epoxy can be colored real close.
I checkered many stocks with punky wood where a diamond would break out. Colored epoxy fixed when I recut the break. Some wood was so bad I had to soak with super glue to cut. Wood crumbled.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 44man

commercial fillers suck.

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Amen!!!!!!!

Commercial fillers are worthless and general just make a mess! I try to use wood with as much figure as I can find and often I get blemishes in spite of my best efforts to cut a clean blank (I cut my own blanks from local trees), crotch wood and burls are very prone to rot and bark inclusions that ruin a lot of wood for anything except maybe pistol grip/knife handle blanks or those silly ink pen blanks. A trick that has worked well for me is to mix Walnut (on Walnut wood) sanding dust with epoxy glue, mix until achieving a good color match then additional wood dust can be "streaked" onto the applied mix to give it a more natural appearance. This is mostly trial and error and sometimes (often actually) it takes several trials to make it look really decent, the more figure in the wood the easier to get a good match but I have gotten pretty good results even on straight grain. I have only done this using Walnut but I see no reason it would not work on other wood types as long as the same types and color of wood is used to produce the dust. This dust/epoxy mix IMHO looks much better than any commercial filler or epoxy coloring agent even the dyes used with Acraglas.

In case someone wants to try this, I called the dust sanding dust but actually it is purpose made dust produced using a grinder as I found that actual sanding dust from sandpaper can sometimes (but not always depending on paper type used) have grit in it that can show as tiny white spots when finished and a slower grinder speed with more pressure will produce a courser dust used for the streaking effect. Regardless of whether the contrasting streaks are attempted or not on figured wood doing this can with practice produce a repair that looks very much like a natural occurrence in the grain and on straight grains it can still produce very acceptable results, there are many methods for repairs and this is just one that has worked well for me so I thought I would pass it on.

Great post and true. Just use the natural wood when you can. Hard to do with a scratch or dent.