Stock Refinishing - Trouble filling-in the grain

[pertnear]

I'm re-finishing a Rem 722/.222 The rifle was made in 1960 & it has a very plain stock that someone had shortened about an inch for a young shooter. Not a lot of the original finish left. Surprisingly the stock has some really pretty color & figure to it. So I've stripped it downed, added an ebony forend-tip/grip-cap & installed a recoil pad to correct the LOP. I've been using Tru-oil for finishing & I've decided that it is looking so nice I'm going for a gloss finish. I've been hand rubbing the T.O. in, letting it dry for 24 hours then using fine-steel wool to cut the finish back down. So far 4 coats & it's looking good, BUT I can still see a lot of open-grain in places when I hold it at an angle in the light. At this rate it seems I'll never get the surface filled. Are there any tricks to this? I am I doing something wrong?

TIA....

[country gent]

You might try a few blocked wet sandings with the tru oil. Start with 320 then 400 then 480 and last 600

[elmacgyver0]

I made a stock for a barreled action that was given me and finished it with Tru-Oil.
Most of it turned out fine but one side it got a bit thin.
I need to give it a couple more coats, but I got lazy, sometime I will get back to it.
A lot of work refinishing a stock or in my case finishing a new stock I made.
Not really something you can rush, but I always try.

[Texas by God]

I've used up to 16 coats of Tru- Oil before to get that glossy look. Four ought steel wool between coats. I also put a mark for each coat in the barrel channel with a sharpie. Or else I lose count.
Birchwood Casey makes a walnut tone filler to seal grain before applying Tru oil. Long ago I used some and it worked well, but I just use Truoil by itself.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[Jeff Michel]

Your first coats need to go on heavy, slop in on, once dried (couple days in low humidity) cut back to the woods surface with steel wool and apply the finishing coats, couple drops, rubbed in with the heel of your hand. You will not be removing these subsequent coats with steel wool. Four or five finish coats are usually enough, use rottenstone or auto rubbing compound to polish the surface or to make it a matte finish. If you haven't filled all the pores in the wood you can spot apply heavier coat until satisfied. Stay away from any checkering, brush in a single light coat with a toothbrush and leave it alone. A bit labor intensive but well worth the effort. Permalyn in also very good. Good luck with your project.

[2152hq]

Truoil I have no faith in to be up front about it. It can be good when it does dry. Getting it to dry sometimes can be frustrating.
It seems to want to dry in the bottle better than the wood surface.
TruOil is a Linseed Oil based varnish. Nothing more. It has alkyd resins (man-made resins). Resins are what gives it 'body' and makes an oil into a varnish.
It also has dryers added to make it actually dry.
Linseed oil by itself is very slow to actually 'dry'. It oxidizes rather than air drys in it's natural form.

But what is likely happening is that the steel wool use is pulling the less than totally cured TO out of the pores of the wood.

I just use something like Watco Danish Oil and sand it in to fill the pores.
Any of the Wiping Varnishes works. Tung Oil wiping varnish works well,,drys quick and hard.

Use 400 for the first sanding, leave the sanding'mud' right on the surface to dry.
The next sanding, use 400 again. This time wipe the gunk nearly off but don't try for an absolute clean surface.
Let it dry/
Then wet sand with 600 and then even 800.
Each time wiping the surface nearly clear of the sanding mud. Leaving just enough to see it on the surface. Some will always be soaked up by the grain as it drys.
The last sanding,,wipe it off as you sand. You should see an absolute dead level surface with no low spot/shiner pores.
If there are,,go back and sand in another coat or two of finish to level things out.
Leave it dry a few days.

Now go ahead and put what ever finish you want on it.
Leave it as an 'in the wood' look.
Polish the surface to 1000grit and then with pumice and even rottenstone for a gloss finish.
A dot or two of BLO rubbed out to nothing on the wood at this point and left to dry for a few days will give it a London Best look w/o all the effort of application. Plus it'll have a much better weather protection than any pure Linseed oil finish can provide.

[LAGS]

I usually use the Tru Oil and wet sand with the Tru Oil and 320 or 400 grit sandpaper.
The thing is.
Wet sand the first couple of coated, but Do Not wipe off the stock.
Let that wet sanding mud that happens on the stock.
That fine sawdust and tru oil will work as a filler to fill the wood grain openings.
Once you have the stock wet sanded to what you like.
Then you can apply the Tru Oil and let it dry without wiping it down.
I also think down the Tru Oil by 50% with mineral spirits or Turpentine on the starting coats of oil.
That allows the finish to soak into the wood better and makes it easier for you to apply.

[stubshaft]

Being an ex-owner and operator of a small gunshop I have used virtually EVERY type of stock finish available. Four coats of Tru-oil are not going to seal the grain, especially if the stock was not whiskered and sanded properly. I recently finished the stock of a Shiloh Sharps 1874 Carbine that had a pathetic example of wood, and the finish was next to useless.




I found a product manufactured by S. B. Mcwilliams called Alkanet Varnish (I have NO affiliation with him other than using his product). Here is a short video of his product.

https://youtu.be/NarRT0yUBcQ

It is extremely fast drying, and I was able to apply three coats a day YMMV. The results were very positive and after 5 days of applying the finish (12 coats) I was able to rub it out.



I had considered going for a very high gloss finish but, due to the utilitarian nature of this rifle I stuck with a close wood finish.

[M-Tecs]

Being an ex-owner and operator of a small gunshop I have used virtually EVERY type of stock finish available. Four coats of Tru-oil are not going to seal the grain, especially if the stock was not whiskered and sanded properly. I recently finished the stock of a Shiloh Sharps 1874 Carbine that had a pathetic example of wood, and the finish was next to useless.




I found a product manufactured by S. B. Mcwilliams called Alkanet Varnish (I have NO affiliation with him other than using his product). Here is a short video of his product.

https://youtu.be/NarRT0yUBcQ

It is extremely fast drying, and I was able to apply three coats a day YMMV. The results were very positive and after 5 days of applying the finish (12 coats) I was able to rub it out.



I had considered going for a very high gloss finish but, due to the utilitarian nature of this rifle I stuck with a close wood finish.

Thanks for posting. Never heard of it. I will give it a try. http://www.sbmcwilliams.com/alkanet-story.html

[uscra112]

Truoil I have no faith in to be up front about it. It can be good when it does dry. Getting it to dry sometimes can be frustrating.
It seems to want to dry in the bottle better than the wood surface.
TruOil is a Linseed Oil based varnish. Nothing more. It has alkyd resins (man-made resins). Resins are what gives it 'body' and makes an oil into a varnish.
It also has dryers added to make it actually dry.
Linseed oil by itself is very slow to actually 'dry'. It oxidizes rather than air drys in it's natural form.

But what is likely happening is that the steel wool use is pulling the less than totally cured TO out of the pores of the wood.

I just use something like Watco Danish Oil and sand it in to fill the pores.
Any of the Wiping Varnishes works. Tung Oil wiping varnish works well,,drys quick and hard.

Use 400 for the first sanding, leave the sanding'mud' right on the surface to dry.
The next sanding, use 400 again. This time wipe the gunk nearly off but don't try for an absolute clean surface.
Let it dry/
Then wet sand with 600 and then even 800.
Each time wiping the surface nearly clear of the sanding mud. Leaving just enough to see it on the surface. Some will always be soaked up by the grain as it drys.
The last sanding,,wipe it off as you sand. You should see an absolute dead level surface with no low spot/shiner pores.
If there are,,go back and sand in another coat or two of finish to level things out.
Leave it dry a few days.

Now go ahead and put what ever finish you want on it.
Leave it as an 'in the wood' look.
Polish the surface to 1000grit and then with pumice and even rottenstone for a gloss finish.
A dot or two of BLO rubbed out to nothing on the wood at this point and left to dry for a few days will give it a London Best look w/o all the effort of application. Plus it'll have a much better weather protection than any pure Linseed oil finish can provide.

THIS. Tru-Oil is a ripoff at the price. Buy a pint of BLO, and follow the time-honored London Oil Finish protocol, as modified above. This is exactly what I have been doing for two decades.

Linseed oil does not "dry". It has no solvents to be evaporated. Linseed oil CURES by exposure to oxygen. This cannot be rushed, although gunsmiths and snake-oil salesmen in search of quick profits have been trying to for centuries.

Tru-Oil does dry, because it contains ~50% Stoddard Solvent as a thinner. After the solvent is gone, the linseed oil can cure. (Stoddard Solvent is akin to naptha. It's what auto shops have used in their parts-cleaning tanks for generations. Trade name was Varsol when I was younger.) That 50% should tell you that you ain't getting much oil in that spendy little bottle.

https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/conte...k%20Finish.pdf

BTW the centuries-old formula for spar varnish was linseed oil and pine resin (rosin). Modern varnishes merely substitute an artificial product for the rosin. Not clear from the MSDS whether Tru-Oil has any resins in it at all.

[Bent Ramrod]

I use Tru-Oil almost exclusively. Tried Lin-Speed once and could see no difference, and Tru-Oil is easier to find.

The problem with filling grain in as few coats as possible lies in the wood, rather than the oil, IMHO. Fancy figure has big as well as small pores and filling the former simply takes more applications.

One trick the old timers used to use was to slop the first coat or two on heavily, wait until the surface started to get tacky, and then rub the gooey wood across the grain with a piece of (clean) burlap. This served to move and press the thickened oil into the larger pores, putting more where you want it and less on the surface to be rubbed off with steel wool. Later coats have to be thin, of course, for drying, but at least you have a start. Eventually, though, there will be that one zone of big pores that just needs one or two (or three) more applications, while the rest of the wood is done.

In this situation, I comfort myself by remembering those Hot Rod magazines I used to read where somebody had put 35 coats of Candy-Apple Flake Red lacquer on his chopped&channeled 32 Ford. If he could stand it, so can I.

The addition of Japan (or other) Drier to these linseed-oil concoctions seems to be pretty catch-as-catch-can, IME. Some lots the coatings dry in less than a day; others take longer. I don’t know if they do tests on each batch at the factory and titrate the drier in for cure time, or whether they should be doing that and just add it according to the formula percentage. A friend’s dad made his own formula for sale as well as his own use, and I noticed the occasional stock he was in the process of finishing hanging out in the broiling Arizona sun to help the polymerization along. So even he wasn’t getting it right every time.

The old books, where they just used “boiled” linseed oil, used to suggest a couple fingerfuls of cup grease on the stock at the end of finishing. This to eliminate any residual tacky feel on the wood, and also seal the surface in, away from the air, so it would finish curing. There seems to be just enough dryer in that stuff to make it cure, generate heat and spontaneously combust when in a wad of rags. I finished a threshold to a closet with the stuff, got a little impatient with the coating, and it was still tacky, and collecting dust, months later.

[waksupi]

On some stocks, I have done up to 20 coats to fill the grain.

[Geezer in NH]

birchwood Casey sealer filler. Surprised no one uses this.

Works some complain it dulls checkering tools, but it did not affect my MMC checkers carbide cutter that I could notice

[oldhenry]

birchwood Casey sealer filler. Surprised no one uses this.

Works some complain it dulls checkering tools, but it did not affect my MMC checkers carbide cutter that I could notice

What he said^^^

Brownells no longer list it on their website, but Bass Pro & Cabelas does. I've used Permalyn also. Permalyn is thinner & seems to do a better job of sealing, but Birchwood Casey/Tru-oil does a better job of filling the grain. I've used them together with no ill effects (seal with Permalyn & fill grain with BC/TO sealer). I apply both with a small soft brush (mine is 7/8"). I'm careful to allow 24hr. curing between products.

I also must admit I've used a nontraditional product by CP "Gun Sav'r". It's available in an aerosol can & in normal container for use with an air brush. I used the "Hunter Satin" in the aerosol can with good results. I allow 6hrs. between coats w/o any sanding between coats & it completes the filling of the grain. I refinished 3 stocks with the 1st aerosol can. When I reordered, I clicked on the non-aerosol item by mistake. I didn't have good result with the non-aerosol version (I couldn't get the air pressure right: possible/probably my fault). I notice they now offer it in a hand application version.

I recently ordered a stock from Silver Hill Gun Stocks aka Gunville Gun Stocks & find that they use the Gun-Sav'r (they didn't say whether aerosol or air brush version). They mentioned a sealer product by Mohawk used in the guitar manufacture. I googled Mohawk & find they have multiple sealing products. I need to re-contact Silver Hill to get the specific Mohawk product that they use.

[pertnear]

Okay, thanks guys for all the good info. I'm on coat #9 & it looks like I'll have the grain filled soon. Once that is done, what product do you guys recommend for waxing the finish for the final protection?

[uscra112]

I have never waxed any of mine.

[stubshaft]

I use Renaissance Wax. Any wax that is good enough for museums around the world to preserve their artifacts from paper to steel is good enough for me. It not only preserves but adds a healthy shine too.

[AlaskaMike]

Yep, Renaissance wax would be good, and probably also any good furniture wax. I've also used Johnson's Paste wax with good results.

I prefer to use the wax because an oil finish doesn't provide much if any protection from water.

[Rapier]

To do a sanded in oil finish in a humid environment can take 8 months.
Apply the first coats with 320 wet/dry using a 50% mixture of oil and mineral spirits with japan drier. Sand in snall circular motion to build a paste. Let it to sit, 15-20 minutes, then rub across the grain with brown paper shop towels. Set aside or hang to dry until the surface sands without dragging or build up.
Repeat until the wood grain is filled and then becomes polished slightly. Finish the polish with medium felt pads cut into 1x1 1/5", with rotten stone and mineral oil, near final finish apply Deluxing compound to bring out the final polished stone look to the wood.
This process takes weeks or months to do correctly and if you cut through the finish at the end, you must start again.
Suggest that since you did not lay the base down correctly, you strip the stock and start again. A coat over a coat that is not dry, is a mess.

[uscra112]

First application cut 50-50, and the wood should be hot - almost too hot to touch.

Yes, a coat over an uncured coat makes a bad mess. I think this is were a lot of guys get wrapped around the axle and leave with a bad impression of oil finishing.

A lesson I learned doing lacquer finishes on custom motorcycles: You don't build UP to a smooth finish, you CUT DOWN to it.