Refinishing a birch stock

[Char-Gar]

My Nephew conned me into refinishing his M1 Carbine stock. Well, it is made from birch and that stuff is quirky to say the least. After the wood was prepped, I used some "pre stain" and then some brown leather alchohol base dye. Even so it was splotchy and I had to redye some sectiond and blend with steel wood to get a half way uniform color. I am not into the BLO phase.

It is going to come out OK and a man on a trotting horse would not know it is not walnut. But hold in in your hands and stand in a good light and the jig is up.

Give me walnut any day over this crapy beech and birch.

[Bren R.]

Just thank your lucky stars you're not checkering it. [smilie=b:

Bren R.

[Shiloh]

Birch is funny that way. Did a 10/22 stock and had the same issues. I went with blue TranstTint dye.

Shiloh

[pietro]

Y'all went 'bout the stainin' all wrong - ya shoulda just laid the stock in a trough filled with some o' thet South Texas coffee, grounds & all, for a week.

:guntootsmiley:

.

[357maximum]

I refinished a Remington 581 somewhere in the late 80's. At the time I wanted it to be different so I left it white....NO STAIN just blo and tu-oil. I have had a few people ask me what i was thinking...but I did not care. Over the years it has achieved an orange ish tone somewhat resemlbing freshly cut osage and I have grown very fond of it the way it is. I have a roughed out birch stockset for an underhammer that I plan to finish when I find that elusive bag of roundtoitts. When I finish it I will likely stain it slightly orange with leather dye .......just to be different. Birch can be made into a nice looking stocks if you are a bit weird i spose. [smilie=l:

[largom]

Have used Red Oak stain on a couple of birch stocks that turned out very well.

Larry

[gnoahhh]

Whatever stain you use, always pre-condition birch first. Minwax makes a good one. I have also used a highly diluted mixture of carpenter's glue and water to 'size' the wood. Helps a lot, and sometimes you even get a nice even finish. Lord, I hate finishing birch!

[Cadillo]

Whatever stain you use, always pre-condition birch first. Minwax makes a good one. I have also used a highly diluted mixture of carpenter's glue and water to 'size' the wood. Helps a lot, and sometimes you even get a nice even finish. Lord, I hate finishing birch!

I'm glad you posted that about the Minwax product. I couldn't remember what it's called. I used some to prep, stain, and refinish an M12 stock about five years ago. The stain went on very evenly, something that didn't happen during my previous attempts on Birch M1 stocks.

[Char-Gar]

I used the Minwax pre-stain conditioner on this stock.