Excellent piece on stock finishing

[Preditorvirgin]

any one got any tips on staining a beach stock before oiling ?

money is tight and i would rather spend the money on the action and improve the stock myself

PS: i want the new gun now not the 6 week lead time the manufacturers have quoted

Staining beech stocks is alwys tricky. A crucial point to remember is to totally remove the existing polyurathane finish first. I find scraping to be the most productive way of getting most of it off, followed by a light sanding with 240 grade aluminium oxide paper. CCL Gunstock Stain is the one I use most, diluted 2 parts water to one part stain. Mop on the stain mix to give an even coverage. Let the stock dry thoroughly then gently flat the wood back with 320 grit paper until you have a silky finish. Repeat the coating with the stain, dry and sand with 0000 grade steel wool. Repeat the staing process if you want it darker, alternatively just damp the stock down again then dry and burnish with the wire wool. To finish I use CCL grain sealer - 2 coats then burninsh and finish with your choice of oil.

Good luck - al it takes is patience

[jameswrx]

Interesting thread. I did more than 15 years with lots of experience finishing wood on high end products.

I recently bought an FX T12 that I bought via a picture on gun trader. I hate red colour wood finishes and saw this 'walnut' gun which was pleasant to my eye, very yellow and nice dark grain striping. It turned up and what I received was a horrible red, plain wood. I rang the gun shop and they said it's the same gun! Luckily for me I kept a copy of their pictures and emailed them. They then suddenly realised it was a picture of an old stock gun and had long gone.

Left with the option of sending it back or keeping it and refinishing, I didn't have a lot of choice really. My mate said send it back but it'd cost me £40 to get (postage and my RFD's fee) so sending it back and buying another would have been £15 to send back and another £40 for the next gun.

So now I've started refinishing my stock! It's a time consuming process removing the old finish. It took many hours of stripping with nitromors and that got me down to the red stained wood. I've just about finished sanding one side and it already looks 100 times nicer.

I'm actually going to spray my stock using my spray gun. I have light fast black which I'm going to pick out the grain with and then I'm going to do some shading too.