How many hours does it take to sand and finish a stock?Whats a good price charge for such work?
Who can do it with out a long wait and how many weeks should it take on average?This a big job or little job?
Also is checkering a long time wait?Price for good checkering job?Standard checkering nothing fancy?Thanks in advance

I can't comment on stock finishing cost as I do that myself; checkering can be an expensive proposition, but if you're just looking for functional checkering in a basic style at an affordable price check with Ahlman's. The have a website, but you'll have to search for it as I don't have it saved.

I'm guessing that I'll have 20-30 hours sanding the stock Jeffeoso just cut for me, starting with 100 grit then down to 320. Checkering seems to have a waiting time of 6-12 weeks depending on who you use. You might want to check out Sherry at http://www.checkering.com/ , that's who I am planning on using. She has prices on her web page also. Sorry but I don't know what a gunsmithwould charge for the sanding part.

Thanks guys-Big time!
I had no idea...
That sherry sure does nice work!

20-30 hours? That's a lot. If it's already down to 100 grit, my experience is more like 4-5 hours to get it finish sanded, and stained...assuming you have no inletting to do.

If you finish with Tru-Oil, as you probably should, that extends the finishing time.

I'm lazy... squirt it with outdoor polyurethane, sand, squirt, sand, squirt, sand squirt. Let it sit 72 hours. Shoot and enjoy.

20 - 30 hours spread out over three months is more like it. For me anyway.

Browningguy, I don't know what you are doing with sandpaper that is taking you that long but it is way more than you need to be doing. The 2 to 5 is more like it for finish sanding.

chic is spot on about the sanding time. I am a fast sander though! Learned from my Grandfather & dad sanding walnut furniture when i was a kid.

Sanding might only take that but what about the finish he asked about? It takes me forever between letting the first coat dry, scraping it back, wet sanding, letting it dry, wet sanding again, etc. I don't know about you all but I hate wet sanding & stock finishing in general. Too bad I'm too finacially challenged to actually pay someone to do it, lol.

Try the urethane.

After the stain has dried for 24 hours, start varnishing in the morning. Squirt, let stand an hour, lightly dry sand the surface, and repeat at hour intervals. By late afternoon, it's ready to just sit for 72 hours to give the urethane a chance to mostly harden. Four cycles of about 5 minutes each are usually enough, but some people want more for a really "liquid" look.

Oh.. run some masking tape down the barrel channel, and in the action inletting, so you don't change that.

Well the majority of my time is getting the area around the grip and the cheekpiece perfect, Alternating between getting some very tiny scapers in there and then sanding. I just don't want to mess up the first one I do so I'm going real slow.

A couple of things can impact the length of time it takes to finish sand a stock.
1. If you start sanding before the stock is fully shaped. To put it another way, you try to sand the stock to shape. I suppose it may sometimes be due to a lack of tools. You see it often when a novice refinishes a stock. They sand the entire stock down to the level of the deepest dent.
2. The tools sometimes used for shaping leave a rough or uneven surface. Dremel tools and some types of rasps tear and gouge the wood, making for some tedious sanding.

Of course, I am not implying that these apply to anyone on AR, though I was guilty of it when I first started messing with stocks!

I can sand a stock in a half day and get a good first coat of finish on it...

Refinishing usually runs from about #100 to $200 depending on the stock, re-doing the checkering could run that price up a good deal.

It depends on how you go about it and how perfect you want it to be. I have two approaches to stock finishing.

First, quick and dirty. The stock gets sanded with a pnumatic automotive DA sander. It is very fast. You need to have some practice with it. If not you can end up with a ruined stock. Sanding time with it will be about an hour. Some hand work need to be done but, not much. The stock needs to be straight and level to start with and you need to keep checking with a straight edge. The finish on this job will be done with a paste filler, stain then laquer. The job looks 95% as good as the long method.

The long method is to use blocks and sanding by hand. Sanding might take me most of a day. Filler is sanding dust worked in with diluted spar varnish. The finish is tung oil finish, then waxed. It is a very nice finish but, might take me two weeks.

Frankly I don't do the second type anymore. That was reserved for picky paying customers. I now only do work for myself and have a pragmatic view of such things. My hands can not take hours of hand sanding. I also am honest with myself about how hard my guns get used. The answer is they don't get used hard. So, laquer looks great, lasts well enough to outlive me, and lets me persue other more pressing matters in life.

Checkering is a highly specialized skill. You will have to learn to do it yourself or pay someone for their time. Since so few do it you will have to put up with backlogs and waits. I can do a simple pannel in a about an hour with my power checkering tool. Complex pannels and patterns are time consuming to figure out and exicute. If someone seem expensive for such work it is because you don't fully understand what goes into it. The learning curve is long and the work is grueling. Well done hand checkering is a bargain.

"How many hours does it take to sand and finish a stock? Whats a good price charge for such work?" This was the original question.....To take a rough inletted and shaped stock to final finish and checkered took me about 50 hours. I charged $600. That was 10-years ago. I was the local stock guy. The only fish in a small pond. My work is better than average but not first class gun guild stuff. In other words, if you know what you are looking at you may be able to find a tiny fault here or there. 99% of guys were wowed by it. I would not show it off to a top craftsman with a great repuation though. I never felt I could charge enough to make a living at it. Overtime at my real job was a better way to make money.

Thanks for all the help men!I think iam thru sanding.i started out with 120 sandpaper and had to do a lot of cutting back/down and sanding fitting to get my neider butt plate and grip cap right.I have just a teenie tiny over amount of wood on the side of the butt plate.is this acceptable or do i need to be dead perfect flush?It is about the thicknest of a pieace of match packet cover if that much.Anyway igot the cheek area done up nice and went back over everything with 400 paper.Everything looks nice and smooth.Right now i have 7 hours solid working time into it but this is my first stock and i really took my time and made sure i didnt mess up,just stayed with it
Now what do i do?Do i wipe the stock down clean with a wet rag and try to cleanout all the pores i can and look for whiskers?Or do i go over the stock with a finer sand paper?
Also do i clean the stock off with a damp cloth and let dry completly then put a sealer on it and let dry for about 30days- before i start the wet sanding with oil? Ray I think your price quote was dead on as i checked around and the 200$ price is what i was quoted.
I have read about this stock subject on all the old post and i think i believe that one thing i learned from everyone elses mistakes is let the finishing coats dry before you apply another.seems like some of you guys have had some coats that didnt want to dry very good!I hope i dont run into that but probley will with my luck,i liked the one about letting your stock sit in the car window in the sun to get it to dry.Thats a good one!Also just want to pass this one along that i ran into,anyone ever hear of spraying a stock down with a verylast coat of wooden ARROW sealer,like the cedar arrows are finished in for archery?
I saw a stock that had that treatment and it looked great and had a satin finish!Never heard thatone before.
Iam thinking about useing tru oil for my finish but still haven decided what to use.iam going to try to get some birchwood casy clear sealer for the first step,or can i just mix the regular truoil with mineral spirts 50/50 ratio and just saturate it and let airdry for a month before wet sanding tru-oil and should be sealed enough?I just want that dull handrubbed satin finish is all iknow-nothing shiny.....I may just go with tung oil?Some of the tungoil stocks look awful pretty!Thanks again for the help! And be carefull out there-todays friday the 13th!!!!

I am currently refinishing the walnut stock that came with the 1917 that I am finishing the sporterizing. Took me about an hour to strip what was left of the old finish, another 45 minutes of sanding to get it down to a 320 grit finish. Soaked it 4 times with diluted Formby's tung oil and have the 2nd wet sand on it now..Not sure what everyone else does but I wet sand 24 hrs apart. Plan on doing this for 5-7 times to fill pores and then rub in the final coat. Wish I didn't live in an apartment at the time, I would have taken the white spacer and black plastic foreend off. But I will live with it....