The how to's of gunstock work
There are many, MANY ways to refinish and repair a gunstock. Everyone will have their own opinion on it, there is no right or wrong way. But some methods do work better than others, and finding those methods is always the toughest part. It's simply trial and error. So I thought I'd write a post on the how to's of stock repair, and refinishing.
Cosmoline
The battle of cosmoline has been raging on for many years, be it a Turkish Mauser with a bolt crammed full of dried cosmo, or a Garand stock that is leaking oil every time you shoot it. There are many ways people go about removing this oil, some of them have made me cringe, some have made me cry. The method I have used, is what I feel is the most proper and appropriate way to go about oil removal. The trick, is slow and gentle heat. Heat is what was used to put the oil into these guns, and heat is what can be used to remove it. It took more than 60 years for many of our guns to get that oil to soak deep into the stock, however if you do it right you can get nearly all the oil out in a period of just several weeks. The key here is patience! :) For stocks, I like to wrap them tightly with paper towels and rubber bands, then put the thing inside of a very large 50 gallon black trash bag which I tie up real good to keep it hot inside. Then I sit this on the dashboard of the car in the hot Yuma sun. The temperature will reach as much as 180 degree's in cars here, and I've seen eggs fried on dashboards in Yuma. Let the stock sit for about an hour, then unwrap the stock, and change out the paper towels. At the end of the day, you can remove the stock from the bag, and give it an alcohol scrub to remove any surface oil that's left on it. Use 0000 steel wool soaked in denatured alcohol to scrub the stock in small area's at a time, and wipe each area clean with a paper towel before moving onto the next area. The alcohol will pull and remove nearly all the oil from the surface of the stock. The next day, repeat the dashboard method and alcohol scrub method until you notice it has stopped leaking oil on the paper towels in the car. Chances are there is still oil deep down into the stock, it's amazing how much they can hold, I mean it. What you can do is wait a week to let the oil reach the surface again, then bake it in the car again and repeat the alcohol scrubs. At this point you should be able to tell if your done deoiling your stock, or if you want to wait another week to let it sit before baking in the car again. It just depends on how soaked your stock is. The worst stock I've seen was on my Ishapore 2A, which is dressed in Indian redwood, which LOVES to hold oil. I probably pulled a full cup of oil or more from the entire stock set. Removing the oil from a stock is an important step in preserving your rifle. Depending on how bad it's soaked, over time the oil will begin go deteriorate the wood fibers, making them soft. It's what I call oil rot, and can make stocks (especially Enfield stocks) prone to cracking and breaking in the heel area.
Chemicals
What makes me cringe and cry the most is when I see someone using a heavy duty kitchen or industrial degreasers to remove what they believe is all the oil from their gunstock, in preparation for refinishing. First off. These harsh chemicals were never designed to be used on wood. Many of them contain ingredients that literally degrade and dissolve the glue that's found naturally in the fibers of wood.
With this glue gone, the fibers begin to break apart and separate, creating soft spots in your stock or area's that will splinter or chip much too easily. Secondly, these cleaners only get the surface oil off and do not get deep down into the stock to remove the oil. Thirdly, many of these products contain chemicals that if left in the wood, will continue to attack the wood and even the metal below the woodline, causing corrosion. So use your oven cleaner and 409 what they were used for, to clean your oven made of steel. Not 60 year old wood. To properly strip a stock, you need to get yourself some wood stripper called StripX by Kleanstrip. It's at Walmart in the red can. The Gold can stuff works good too but is much stronger and I only use it when I need to dissolve epoxies off badly repaired stocks in preparation for re-repair work. Strip X is very easy to use, and will remove paints, light glues, oils, varnishes and the toughest polyurethanes. Best of all you don't have to water log the stock in the bathtub to remove what stripper is left in the stock. Once StripX has evaporated, it is no longer chemically active and will not continue to work on whatever it's applied to. Rule of thumb with StripX, if it's wet it's working. You may run across a stock that has that super glossy oily gunky buildup on it's surface. Like an old SMLE stock. This is years worth of oil, dirt and dust that has collected on the surface. Handling the rifle has only smoothed out the surface of the wood, compressing this gunk into the fibers giving it a shiny oily look. If value is not of concern on a stock like this, and I want to start removing the oil from it, I first give it a coat of StripX. This removes the hard oily crud on the surface, making leeching out the oil in my car bake much easier and faster. To use StripX you use a brush to heavily apply the stripper to the stock, dab it on don't brush it on. If it's too thin and your working in a hot environment it will evaporate almost immediately. Once applied, you will see it start to bubble up, the crud will just drip right off, so have a drop cloth or bucket handy. After 15 minutes, use Nitrile gloves begin to use a plastic scraper tool to remove the majority of the gunked up stripper (looks like snot) on the wood. Then take the stock to a source of running water (not too hot) and use a nylon brush to clean away any remaining stripper. Always let a stock dry at a cool temperature of no more than 80 degree's, wet wood and heat will sometimes cause it to warp or split near the edges, i've seen this a number of times.
Let it dry 24 hours before doing anything else to it.
Sanding and surface prep
I'm usually against using sandpaper at all, if your working on a piece that's collectible at all sanding only diminishes the value, and once wood is gone it's gone forever. When sanding work with good quality papers, cheap Chinese dollar store sandpapers don't work at all, their grit is not uniform, and it just fall right off the paper because they use a cheap glue to adhere it with. When sanding always use a block. Using your hands creates uneven pressure, and stocks naturally have soft spots and hard spots. What will happen is you will create a "ripple" affect on your stock, which cannot be reversed without sanding more. To remove dings and large dents from a stock you can steam them out. First I like to soak the wood fibers on a ding to allow it to swell before steaming. I get some toilet paper and make a small ball of it, put it in the dent, and keep it wet for the next few hours as the dent continues to soak up the water. For steaming, I use an iron, if it has a steam feature, use it as it helps quicken the job. Take a soaking wet rag, ring it out, and place it over the dent, then hold the iron on the cloth pressing down on the dent for at least 15 seconds. I've had to go as high as 30 seconds per dent to remove one, older dents are harder to remove than recent ones. Some dents will not come out at all, it's best to leave them as "character dents".
Finishes
As many of us know BLO (boiled linseed oil) was the finish used on the majority of Military rifles. However places like China and Russia often used shellac. Shellac is alcohol based, and personally I am not a fan of it. But it can be a beautiful finish when applied correctly by someone who knows to to work with the stuff. Another oil used by Armies was tung oil. Not that "tung oil finish" you see at Lowes or Home Depot, i'm talking real pure tung oil straight from the nut of the tung tree. It's also called Chinawood oil. It looks and feels like honey, and is a wonderful finish to work with. It does not darken a stock nearly as much as BLO, and will not darken or oxidize with age as much as BLO will. Tung oil also provides much better protection against water compared to BLO. In fact I believe it wasn't until late 1942 when the U.S Military started using pure tung oil instead of BLO, once they found out it dried quicker and gave superior water protection compared with BLO. Many of today's "tung oils" are not tung oils at all. They in fact have very little tung oil in them. They are all very similar to True Oil (which is BLO with polymers added). There's nothing wrong with these finishes, just know what you are buying before you buy it and use it on a Military stock, they dry just like hard varnishes and are very glossy, so sometimes just don't look right on an old warhorse. REAL pure tung oil can be found at www.realmilkpaint.com
Repairing a stock
When repairing a gunstock, there's some things you need to know that will help your repair last for the rest of your life, and look good. First off, never use glues, like Gorilla glue or Elmers wood glue. These all degrade over time with oil, and are simply not strong enough to stand up the violent vibrations of a working firearm. The two best things you can use, is Devcon 2 ton clear epoxy weld with a 30 minuet work time (gives good time to soak into the wood), and more preferably Brownells Acraglas. Fiberglass cloth from walmart is also good to have on hand.
Now I won't go into the details on how to address certain cracks and broken area's on a stock. Instead I will show you some of my work that I have done on stocks in the past. I've done everything from filling a small gouge, to completely building a new part of a broken stock and splicing it in.
http://www.surplusrifleforum.com/vie...241e65a48f95e6
This is my 71/84. Old pictures from when I was working on it.
I completely rebuilt the nose of the stock, as well as patched in two pieces of walnut into two area's where wood had been seriously gouged out. I worked for 50 days nearly all in a row restoring this gun back to shape. Seems like a long time I know, but it's that patience that made it come out so nice.
Here's what it looked like before
http://i43.tinypic.com/153lh7o.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/2nu1soy.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/2edoca9.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/oaydz6.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/f1xoud.jpg
After
http://i40.tinypic.com/2eveq80.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/5yc183.jpg
Well I spent nearly 2 hours typing this. I hope this has helped anyone who may have questions or is new to stock work. I am by no means an expert. I simply take pride in my work and I hope to someday share what I do know with others, so that they can do the same. If anyone has any questions just post them here or drop me an email at thomasbussell25@gmail.com or see my website at www.tomsstocksmithing.yolasite.com
Remember, with time and patience you can do just about anything. :drinks:
