Wooden stock stain color change ???

D

Doug Lee

New member
I picked up an old Remington model 742, my problem is that the forend is stained with a brown to dark brown wood stain like walnut and the butt stock has a slightly reddish color to it, like red oak. I would like to change the forend to a more reddish color, like the butt stock.
Can I safely lighten the darker color on the forend, if so, using what?

Thanks,
Doug Lee
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Not an easy project and wish you well !!!

Doug,
This is a tricky project and seldom comes out the way you want. Both Pieces are walnut and even when original, probably did not come out of the same wood. Even if you stripped both pieces, there are no garanties, it will come out the way you want. Perhaps you could start by stripping the forend, perhaps even bleach it and refinish. These are tough calls to make or predict. .... :rolleyes:

Recently I lightly sanded a pistol stock and applied a couple of coats of dark red paste wax and looks good, for now . ..... :rolleyes:

Be Safe !!!
 
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You can try this , I had a similar problem on a pump shotgun , the but stock was reddish brown and the pump fore end just walnut brown .
I lightly steel wooled the existing finish ... and rubbed on a coat of Min-Wax Wood Finish Penetrating Stain Oil finish . It is a oil finish with a penetrating stain in the finish .

I applied coats and wiped the finish down ... after two or three applications I got a match .
I was using the color Red Mahogany to get the reddish tint to the brown wood ... and it worked .

If you can't get a satisfactory match ... you could refinish both , simply remove the finish down to the bare wood and use the Min-Wax Wood Finish and get a nice Red Mahogany color or I've had good results with a base finish of Early American followed by two thin coats of Red Mahogany . It's a nice oil finish and after rubbing with 0000 steel wool looks like a nice hand rubbed oil finish .
Gary
 
I have been there and tried that before. trying to change a stain color. It ended poorly. I would buy a new wood stock. or paint the one you have.
 
Thanks to all for the input, I now have a better understanding of the direction I need to go.

Merry Christmas

Doug Lee
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And an excellent dye for wood and for matching colors is leather dye.
I use Fiebing's and the older Tandy alcohol or water based dyes to get correct colors or to match wood.

You can thin the dyes to get lighter tints and darken as needed.
Colors can be mixed for other odd colors.
I found that for Red-Brown tints, Cordovan seemed to work very well.

Here's an AK-74 Russian Red I did with straight Cordovan leather dye.......



Shop for leather dyes at Tandy and Springfield Leather.
Other possible colors are Russet and Mahogany,
 
A friend brought me a 22 rifle some years ago and asked me to sand it down the stock and make it look nice. He was gonna give it to a grandson. I sanded it, to find it had no color to it, and I tried dyes and stains and nothing worked. Some unidentified cheap wood. Everything looked awful. Finally I got a fairly thick walnut colored wipe-on varnish/stain and found success. Simply put, I took a wadded up paper towel (a succession of them) and painted the stock. The uneven wadded paper towel gave the stock a grainy look like walnut. Took me a while to get it right. When that dried, I put a clear varnish on it. It looked real good finally, after a dozen failed attempts.
 
Just thinking out loud here!

The original rather thick coat of factory Remington clear finish, (possibly Dupont RKW) was removed from this rifle before I bought it.
I guess it was chemically stripped, sanded, stained or dyed, then a top coat of either oil or synthetic coating was applied.
At this point just wondering how much sanding it will take to to remove or lighten the darker brown color on the forend, not sure how deeply stain penetrates into wood.

Thanks,

Doug Lee
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Be patient with yourself and the project.

At this point just wondering how much sanding it will take to to remove or lighten the darker brown color on the forend, not sure how deeply stain penetrates into wood.
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This is a labor of love and whatever it takes to get the job done, it's worth the effort. Depending on the finish,, you can "strip" and sand, scrap and sand. Whatever you decide to do, be patient with yourself and the project. .... :)

Now then, some of the replies have mentioned Leather-Dyes and yes, they work. These are commonly called "Spirit-Dyes" and they penetrate much deeper than stains. You have to watch them as the more you put apply, the deeper it get and very difficult to undo. When stripped you will have the natural Walnut shades. but seldom will both pieces, match. Save the darker and work with the lighter. ..... ;)

On this job, I would not suggest any bleaching but some folks do .....:)

Be Safe !!!
 
There are also dies available from Woodcraft and others. However, I refinished a number of M1 Garand handguards that were made of lighter birchwood during wartime to match walnut stock pieces reasonably well, just by mixing dark walnut and mahogany versions of Watco Danish Oil. I tested them on the underside of the handguards until I got a close enough match to pass. I apply the Watco finishes with 320, 400, and 600-grit wet-dry paper in succession, followed by a cloth final application, yielding a satin oil finish appearance that is durable.

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Check and protect the buttstock plate to wood area.

A side note on stocks in general. I owned a Rem.-7400. The finish was good and looked to be sprayed on. Killed two deer in Alabama and on one of these hunts, got caught, in a southern rain. When the hunt was over, I took it apart, for a deep cleaning. Yes, there were light "fresh" rust spots, starting to set. ... :mad:

What really blind sided me was that moisture had gotten under the butt-plate and in fact, the stock was starting to swell. ....... :mad:

There was literally no finish, to protect this area. Taught me a hard lessen that buttstocks need protection and should always be checked. There are a number of ways to resolve this problem. I did the best I could with what I had on hand. ...... ;)

Be Safe !!!
 
Every stock that I work on gets end grain and inletting sealed.
The majority of the time when you see swollen butt stocks, it is from unsealed end grain.

So far, they have also always gotten the same finish in hidden areas. But I am sure that I'll run into something where I don't care about that, in the future. I will still seal it, but there may be no stain.
 
Never Assume !!!

Every stock that I work on gets end grain and inletting sealed.
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Same here but I "never" assume they come this way, from the factory. The last one I got bit on, was a Remington and have seen the same on others. .... :)

Be Safe !!!
 
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