Stock Refinish

G

Guyon

New member
Thanks to those of you who posted and helped me get my stocks off a new SAR-1.

The wood on the butt stock, forend, and hand guard is a fairly good match. I am tempted to simply restain them as is.

However, I picked up some wood bleach today when I got stripping supplies. Does the wood bleach significantly help in achieving a more consistent finish? The wood does have some irregularities and a few dark streaks (despite sanding).

Finally, what's your choice for a stain color on an AK? I picked up Red Oak, but haven't entirely made up my mind. I am going to add tung oil after the stain for a flat, smooth finish.
 
You would do a lot better by NOT bleaching the wood (it's really best used for wood that is stained, not to lighten natural wood), and then using lighter and darker stains, or toning sprays, to match the stock & handguard.

You can get toning sprays at furniture refinishing stores. Basically they're aerosol pigment in a can, and allow you to match two pieces of wood.

I've used toning sprays in the past when doing repairs on furniture.
 
I found a great website on this very matter. It had detailed advise....Email me and I shall send it to you.

Karsten
 
I used no stain. I took the varnish off, soaked out the stain using a cloth to daub on and then wipe away varnish remover (acetone based stuff), then sanded as smooth as possible, finishing with 4+ coats of low gloss tung oil. That worked for me, yielding a nice "fishscale grain" piece of blonde colored beech.
 
Use a gel stain. You'll get a nice, even finish on it. Plus it's very easy to apply and hard to screw up. I used bartley's pennsylvania cherry stain on a romainian trainer and it looks great. I've found gel stain handles end grains the best.

If you're going to to use another type of stain, apply minwax pre-stain wood conditioner. It will help to even up absorption of water based and other types of stain.

You can skip the bleach unless you want to lighten the overall finish. I had the dark streaks, too. They're part of the wood, and I find that letting the wood be what it is gives you the best finish.

If you're going to be doing this more than once, I'd pick up bob flexner's "Understanding Wood Finishing : How to Select and Apply the Right Finish".
 
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