More tru oil questions

[44minimum]

Hey guys, I've got a Marlin model 60 that the stock looked terrible on when I got it. So I decided to refinish it. It looked like it had some type of varnish on it so I used a chemical stripper to get it off. This is my first ever attempted refinishing so I used one of those birchwood Casey refinishing kits with true oil. Sanded it with 100 grit, then 200 grit and just a little bit with 400 grit. One side of the stock looked normal and the other side looks kinda weird, and it had me wondering if this stock was a lemon from the factory, a borderline reject. But I went ahead and put one coat of tru oil on it and it has a few areas where it got a lot darker, some blotchy type areas, mostly around the pistol grip. Do you think I didn't sand these areas good enough? I tried to apply an even coat all over. By sanding or using steel wool on these areas will they lighten up and match the rest of the stock? Hopefully, I am including pictures also so that you can see what I did.

The the side of the stock that has the medallion looks fine to me, it's the other side and mostly under the pistol grip that looks like ****. Can you help?

http://http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y48f1Q798Vc/TjrZxFvNPyI/AAAAAAAAABg/Egu49J9KNR4/s1600/DSCN3478.JPG


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pUf1WzI_bTw/TjrZ_ckiIFI/AAAAAAAAABk/p0jQPAIFTGA/s1600/DSCN3479.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pQKSer0j3kY/TjraTwNABAI/AAAAAAAAABo/KvY0Le41WYo/s1600/DSCN3480.JPG


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XUfh9vZ_e9o/TjraeUeONgI/AAAAAAAAABs/209Yk_8rTvc/s1600/DSCN3481.JPG

I would appreciate any input I can get.

[docone31]

I would get a can of Easy Off! oven cleaner, spray it on, wait for a while, then rinse it off. I would do that several times. Then, I would sand it.
You still got some finish in there.
I would then use the Tru Oil without stain. It will look good.
The Easy Off! will not hurt the stock.

[SharpsShooter]

The pistol grip area has been saturated with oils from skin contact. This area is always a problem on older, well used 22's. I recently refinished a Mossberg 144 that had been a military school rifle and it took a lot of sanding to get rid of a couple of trouble spots.

I would sand it with 80 grit to start and work it to 220 finished. If it is still dark in spots you will need to stain it to try to get an even color. I dislike tru-oil and much prefer Linspeed. It is far better and easier to work with in my opinion.

SS

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_8154e3ae3e8392b9.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1690)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_8154e3ae3ff50bcb.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1691)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_8154e3ae415dd7fa.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1692)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_8154e3ae42def700.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1693)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_8154e3ae43e1fab6.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1694)

[Reg]

You still have remaining factory stain and finish on the wood, and there might well be stains from the oil on ones hands. I would not use any form of chemical stripper, especially Easy off. Get a good garnet sand paper, back it with blocks and carefully and completley sand the stock. Make things smoothly round where they should be round and perfectly flat where they should be flat.
Quite often factories will use what ever wood they can obtain then stain to get the required color. The wood you show will be very light and you might have to use a stain to darken things up a bit and to blend flaws and sap wood.
When your stock is completly sanded and stained as you would desire, then go ahead with the Tru Oil.
The first few coats I would cut 50/50 with mineral sperits to allow it to soak into the wood deep, then build the filling coats in thin layers and do sand each coat as needed to prevent a build up as in runs or heavyr spots. Keep the layers even and smooth allowing 24 hours drying between coats and even more if your humidity is high.
It could easly take 15 or more coats to build a fully filled, even, layer but when it is fully filled out, finish sand carefully with a 400 grit wet or dry paper and sand it wet then finish with a high grade of automotive rubbing compound. Brownells 5 F is a excellent way to finish a stock. Apply any rubbing compound with a soft felt pad and be gentil. Don't go after it like killing snakes. No matter what it seems, that finish will take many months to actually completly dry out.
Tru Oil is a excellent finish as is Linspeed and many other commercial finishes out there. Most of the stock finished like the above mentioned contain Tung Oil which is even a great finish by it self but Tung Oil, lacking a dryer can take longer to set up and harden. Any of these finishes containing Tung Oil will make a flexable, easy to repair finish which is what you want on a gun stock. The big trick with any finish also applys to bluing and that is you will only get as good a finish as your prep work.

:smile:

[44minimum]

I had sanded it until the entire stock was the same color, I thought but it is entirely possible that I didn't get all the finish off. I sprayed it with easy off, left it on there for an hour then rinsed it off, then I did it again. It still didn't work so we scrubbed it with scotch bright pads but that still didn't work so used a chemical stripper. It worked mostly but still there were dark spots. I guess I just didn't sand deep enough into them. We'll try again. Thanks. And that is a nice looking stock on the rifle. I bet it wasn't easy

[Char-Gar]

You are probably dealing with Beach or Birch wood and not walnut.

[skeet1]

Reg is right you need to do some more sanding. It looks like you have a lot of factory stain to get off yet.

Ken

[44minimum]

Hey guys, just wanted to give you an update on my refinishing job. Everyone got tired of sanding on it so we ended up putting true oil on it without getting rid of all the dark spots. They were mostly gone, but they are still visible somewhat. The more we sanded the blonder the wood got. I don't know what it was but I certainly don't think it was walnut. It looks a lot better than it did anyway. If you want to look at it here are some pictures on my blog.

http://semiredneck.blogspot.com/2011/08/great-rifle-stock-refinishing-project.html

Thanks for your help

[44minimum]

And another question. Is five coats of true oil enough?

[mongo]

I did one of my Garand stocks with tru-oil and also got the same dark spots on the grip. I thought the cause was the way the grain in the wood ran, I put 8 coats on the stock. I know it dont look right on an M-1 but it sure is purdy..lol tommy

[SharpsShooter]

Five coats will seal it just fine. I think I would have stained it myself to get an even coloration, but that's just me.

SS

[44minimum]

When you have wood like that, with some dark spots in it and you put a coat of stain over it, does all the wood come out the same color or would the dark spots still be darker and then you have to try to match them up and blend them in with the rest of the wood? I would have preferred it to be all one color but have no experience whatsoever with stain. And it looked to me like someone had tried to refinish it before and really screwed it up. I didn't want to repeat that.

[SharpsShooter]

In your situation, I would use a dark stain like the #123 in the picture. the dark will be less noticeable and it would highlight what grain you have

http://www.bunkbedconcepts.com/uploads/9/2/9/2/929299/471721_orig.jpg

[cajun shooter]

As was posted by all the other members you don't have Walnut as it is a dark rich looking wood in it's natural color. I would agree with the poster that posted that it is Birch or similar wood.
SS is dead on when he is advising you to use a dark stain before applying the tru-oil. Every wood takes stain in a different manner. By that I mean if the wood is hard and dense then the stain will not penetrate as deep and as fast if the wood is soft.

[ilcop22]

I used to use tru-oil on my guns, but I found it either didn't take properly (like the issue you had) or it makes the gun look too shiny... Something undesireable for a mil-spec. I made a batch of 1/3 Military Gun Stock Wax which I now use on my wooden firearms. It's 1 part BLO, 1 part turpentine and one part beeswax. I know this is mostly for military stocks since they're first done with BLO (or something similar), but since you started that stock from scratch, you might give it a try. Take it back down to the wood, progressively sand it smooth, stain if you like, then apply 2-3 coats of BLO by hand. When that's dry, finish with the 1/3 mix. Looks great on my guns. Cheap and easy, too.

[Wayne Smith]

If you want an even look you can dye the wood. Wood dyes are expensive but you can go to the grocery store and get RIT and have the same stuff. You will have to wet it, let it dry, and sand off the feathers, though. This will require removing the current finish but chemical removal should work this time. The RIT dies can be mixed to get the color you want. If you are creative you can come up with some extremely close wood colors.