m1 Garand finish

N

ndking1126

New member
I was wondering what they used to finish the wood on the orignal M1s. I don't have one, and I am not going to refinish one, so no need for "don't destroy history" comments. :) Not to mention you'd be preaching to the choir because I have an old SKS I would never refinish or alter.

Thanks!
 
lowracer, excellent website. I find it interesting though that they used BLO which is says is not waterproof... the way they talked about BLO didn't really inspire confidence in this finish for me.

Maybe I missed something, but they said that using any finish-stripping method that uses water is inappropriate. Later on, they describe how to use steam to pull out dents (which I've heard of before). Seems to me those are contradictory?

Out of curiosity, I once stripped an old shotgun with Easy-Off and water. I'm sure this isn't the best option, but I wanted to see how it worked. Seems to have worked OK for me. When I put Tru-Oil on, I described it as "on the wood" and the next stock I did I wanted the finish to be "in the wood". I was quite pleased with myself when I read this article and they used the exact same terminology I had come up with all by myself! Very informative on the Minwax, I will try that next time.. whenever that may be.

Thanks
 
I rubbed it down with some '0000' steel wool
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I would recommend not using steel wool on a your stock without quickly applying a finish.

I did that once and found that very small strands of the steel wool had embedded into the stock. They were so small that they were not visible to the naked eye. I finished smoothing the stock with the steel wool and let the stock sit in my garage over a weekend, unprotected by a finish or oil.

Turns out that these tiny strands of steel wool that were embedded into the stock ended up rusting very quickly...creating very small rust spots all over the stock.

My stock looked like it had the chicken pox! I spent another whole day using Emory paper to sand the rust spots out which had penetrated deeper than I could have imagined.
 
I would recommend not using steel wool on a your stock without quickly applying a finish.
Click to expand...
Ooops...failed to mention that that the wood was not bare. It was actually already in good shape but I just wanted to give it a good smoothing down before the hand wax job.
 
Maybe I missed something, but they said that using any finish-stripping method that uses water is inappropriate. Later on, they describe how to use steam to pull out dents (which I've heard of before). Seems to me those are contradictory?
Click to expand...

Differences in density and "wetness". Water will tend to soak into a porous non-protected surface. Steam won't, unless, of course, you let it cool and condense into water...
 
This 03A3 and Garand, didn't look too bad when I got them, I rub down the existing finish with OOOO steel wool and then I dipped the steel wool in some walnut stain and rub it on them, then I waxed them with paste wax. Someone else had already done the 03A3, but all the cartouches are visible, on the Garand only the one on the pistol grip is visible, it looked like it had an arsenal refinish when I got it.

I need to take a better pic, this ones bad.:o
100_0187-1.jpg


The Garand was made in 4/44 and the 03A3 was made in 1943, the bayonet was made by PAL in '43 as well. The 1911 is the Colt WW1 Reproduction.

I'm going to get an S&K no drill scope mount and put an old Weaver K-4 with a post rectcle on the 03A3. I know its not 'authentic', but it will be fun to shoot.

1903A3.JPG

S&K no drill scope mount on an 03A3.
 
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