I've got a Sako Riihmaki (posted in the classifieds) that has extra wood added to the grip and cheekpiece. It appears that the wood was either glued or epoxied in place. My question is, am I better off selling as is, or is there a way to get the additional ugliness off? I've done lots of furniture refinishing and a few stocks. Any suggestions?





Thanks in advance.

Ken

you could remove the wood...if you are good with a chisel and know how to checker. It looks like the pistol grip pattern is going to need some help when you are done.

You are right, the cheek piece is not so complimentary. The pistol grip is a neat idea, but could have been executed a little better?

Best of luck,
Chris

I know heat and wood can be a bad mix, but I would be trying to apply some heat and break the epoxy bond and get that stuff off of there! If the wood is decent in the original stock it should be OK, and then you would just have a refinish and probably a re-checker on your hands.

Good luck!

I don't know about the wood, but I'd sure like to have the old Stith base and rings. Please PM me if you think we can work something out.

Thanks,
John

Heat usully works great on ordinary epoxy, when you want to take it off.

Worse comes to worse, you could use for a pattern. Or, paint it.

The question I would ask first is has whoever did this to the stock, shape it over the origional stock or make flat to fit the extra pieces to. The reasonably poor execution of the work suguests to me he may not have been good enough to mirror the stock and cut flats first.

Von Gruff.

Hey, you really can't make it that much worse so I'd say go for it.

Personally, I'd first remove the action and all hardware then hit the cheekpiece with a belt sander to make sure there are no hidden screws,nails, or dowels. Then I'd pop it in a 250 degree oven and check it every 5 minutes until the glue softens. Just for grins I'd have a small brass scratch brush available and go over the checkering while the finish was still hot and soft. You might want to have a 6 oz or so hammer handy as well that you can give the cheekpiece a few whacks with while it is heating up and see if it can get knocked loose that way, just let it get hot first.

Thanks gentlemen. Pulled it off the market and will work on it as time allows. Was going to have to sell for too little for such a nice rifle.

Will update when progress happens. Thanks again.

Ken