Gents,

I'm currently in the process of refinishing the stock on a Winchester 94 (1950 mfg.) I recently acquired. The metal is in good shape, but the stock was in need of some care, as 67+ years of crap had accumulated on it. I spent most of my weekend stripping the old finish off with Citristrip (works great, BTW). Now that I'm done, I have a bare stock that has slight bits of stripper still stuck in the grain. They suggest using mineral spirits to remove the rest of the stripper, but I tried that without total success. Anyone have any suggestions for getting all the remaining contaminants off the wood to prepare for grain filling?

You realize you may have reduced the value by a bunch ? But since it's past tense anyway, I'd try fine steel wool with the spirits.

I use steel wool and water to clean up paint stripper. The hell with collector values. It's your rifle, finish it to your liking.

Tsp will pull out oil. Solvents like xylene, acetone Etc will too faster, but only outside.
Denatured alcohol smells better.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I should've mentioned it's not a "collector" grade rifle, just a decent shooter. In any case, I'm not as concerned with the value now as I am with having a field-ready rifle for the rest of my life.

Duane, my only concern with the steel wool option is that I've seen where it can leave little bits stuck in the wood that are a pain to remove. You have far more experience than I, so I'll take you at your advice.

Others, I have acetone and mineral spirits hanging around. Has anyone ever messed with the simple option of soap and water in the kitchen sink? I've seen it mentioned in a few places but am hesitant to try it myself.

Scrub it with a stiff brush while running hot water over it.

I use denatured alcohol and an old toothbrush.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
I use denatured alcohol and an old toothbrush.

That's the one. I did this yesterday night, and it worked great. No harsh chemicals, easy clean up, and dries quickly without raising the grain. Thanks for the suggestion.

I use soap and hot water dry it with a hair blower and then use a cloth dampened with Alochol or whatever.. this will reaise the grain as well, and you can hit it with some 600 grt.

I never touch wood with steel wool as its oily and shards get in the wood and in time and use will pop thu the finish. Wet sanding with fine paper like 600 grit wouldn't hurt..Just my opine.

I say never, but once the stock is finished and cured and you've been hunting with it, it shouldn't hurt to polish is lightly with 0000 steel wool..Ive done that and it changed nothing as far as I could tell, and the steel dust wiped right off.

quote:

Originally posted by Clayman:

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
I use denatured alcohol and an old toothbrush.

That's the one. I did this yesterday night, and it worked great. No harsh chemicals, easy clean up, and dries quickly without raising the grain. Thanks for the suggestion.

You're welcome!

I wash stocks with acetone and a Scotch-brite pad, an old toothbrush will clean up the checkering.

I have acetone but was hesitant to use it because of the fumes. I'm doing this work in my basement and didn't want to stink up the house and/or pass out from fumes.

I'm done with stripping and sanding; now it's on to coats of Tru Oil to bring it back to life. So far, so good!

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
I use soap and hot water dry it with a hair blower and then use a cloth dampened with Alochol or whatever.. this will reaise the grain as well, and you can hit it with some 600 grt.

I never touch wood with steel wool as its oily and shards get in the wood and in time and use will pop thu the finish. Wet sanding with fine paper like 600 grit wouldn't hurt..Just my opine.

I say never, but once the stock is finished and cured and you've been hunting with it, it shouldn't hurt to polish is lightly with 0000 steel wool..Ive done that and it changed nothing as far as I could tell, and the steel dust wiped right off.

If you're (rightly) concerned about oily residue in hardware store-grade steel wool, you can buy oil-free steel wool. I use Liberon brand steel wool, available through woodworking outlets. More expensive than the stuff at Home Depot, but worth every penny and it's oil free. Conversely, one can de-grease cheap steel wool by rinsing it with acetone. The couple of bucks more that Liberon costs isn't enough to justify that procedure though, IMO.

Large bowl put denatured alcohol in the bottom of it stand the gun vertical in it and simply take steel wool and wipe gently I use 0000 works wonderful

If you are worried about bits of steel wool breaking free a 3M gray scotch bright is the ticket

Clayman :
I'm a bit too late since the stock was already stripped like a table leg. (arrrrgh!) But, before you "strip" the next project, consider raising the dents first then use denatured alcohol and soaked 000 steel wool (tooth brush in the checkering) to remove all scale and dirt using light pressure wiping with white paper towels until they come up clean. Then build up the finish to the same level as the remaining finish like this.

Clayman. Please show the finished stocks when you get done. Lots of TruOil fans on here.

Oh, absolutely. After all this kind advice, I'll let everyone see the finished result. Right now, I'm in the process of building up the finish, so it's not the prettiest. I certainly uncovered some hidden figure in the wood, though!

Well, I'm totally finished with this project as of Thursday night. Stock has been completely stripped, sanded, and refinished using 15 coats of Tru Oil. Below are the before and after pictures. The reason I selected this rifle, aside from the obvious vintage, is because I could faintly make out some very nice figure in the wood underneath the old, crusty finish. The results speak for themselves.

Before - old, scratched, and nasty!








After - refreshed, smooth, and protected. Check out the figure on the comb!










I also took the time (while the gun was in a million pieces) to clean off all the old fouling, grease, oil, cookie crumbs, etc. and cold blue a few selected pieces using 44/40. That's an amazing product - probably not forever durable, but certainly makes things look like new when properly prepped. I installed a new Marble's .310 white bead front sight to replace the battered, rusty, and dim standard sight. This was by far the biggest pain in the ass of all the tasks. The sight may as well have been welded in there. With some careful application of Kroil and the right punches, I was able to drift it out, clean up the dovetail, and perfectly (!) fit the new site to the same. I even sanded down the sides so the front hood would still clear. I also installed a set of Grov Tec sling swivels on the buttstock and magazine tube. Their instructions and quality are fantastic.





All said, I now have a fine example of a Model 94 I can shoot, hunt with, and enjoy for another several decades.

Before I gave up refinishing stocks, I had LONG given up paint strippers. One of those little palm sanders costs less than $60 and will run for 20 hours or more before you have to toss them. I found that I could strip a stock down faster with one of them than I could by monkeying around with chemicals. Just make sure you use good Alox paper and go through your grits properly. I burn up 2 or three of the little palm sanders per year just doing final finishing on recoil pads and bedding jobs.

When I was using chemical strippers I used to wash them in the shower with hot water and rub them down with red Scotch Brite pads.

Anyone else not seeing pics? All I'm getting is a circle w/ a minus symbol in the center in an otherwise blank screen.

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
Anyone else not seeing pics? All I'm getting is a circle w/ a minus symbol in the center in an otherwise blank screen.

That's what I see too craigster. Just a theta symbol ϴ .

That's what I'm seein', alright .

Ha! Stupid Google...

It's fixed now, guys. You can actually see what I'm talking about.

Very nice work Brandon. Brought her back to a new life and it has some figure in it too. Now it just needs a bit of simple checkering to make her stand out.

Paul

I like it. No waves, crisp edges, fully filled pores and a nice soft glow to the finish.

Nice work.

Thanks for the kind words, guys. It took me about two months of work from start to finish, doing it when I could on nights, weekends, etc. For further reference, I didn't stray too far away from the Birchwood Casey playbook, as this is the first stock I've done from bare wood on up. I know everyone has their "own" way to do it, but I wanted to see what would happen if you actually followed the directions. I have to say, for a working gun that will see woods and range time, they're spot on. Tru Oil was wet sanded in (3 coats to fill everything totally) and then layered up from there, sanding with 400 between coats. For the last three coats, I didn't sand anything; I just laid the finish on top of the previous coat. Once I was satisfied with the fill, I waited a week and knocked it down with two applications of Stock and Sheen Conditioner applied with a cotton towel. It works pretty well. It knocked down the candy gloss, got rid of any small surface imperfections, and left it looking like I wanted. The only issue I can see with it, as some others have reported, is that the stock is SLICK when you are finished. No way you could use the gun like that. Once that dried, I applied a coat of Gunstock Wax and that brought out some of the luster you see and completely eliminated the slippery, oily feeling. Say what you want, I'm a fan of this system now and might tackle another stock in the near future.

I should also add that I ground and reblued some of of the "bubba'd" screw heads on the gun, and simply replaced many of them with the Pre-64 screw kit from Galazan. All the screws from the kit fit perfectly - except one. For the $40, it's worth it having a gun that doesn't look like someone worked on it with a Swiss Army knife.

Finally got this guy to the range to see if I bought a shooter or a dud. You never can tell with used guns. I tried two kinds of classic factory ammo - Remington 170gr SPCL and Winchester 170gr Power Point. I have handloads waiting to be tested when I can get back to the range with the chronograph and the rest of my gear, but this will do for now. Both are at 50 yards. There's a definite preference for the Winchester ammo. I could take that deer hunting right now and not even bother with handloading! Nice to know if I ever need it, the plain-Jane ammo shoots just fine.

Winchester 170 PP


Remington Green Box 170gr SP CL