Refinish help

I am planning on refinishing an earlier Browning stock and forearm. I got the gun cheap.

I have the old finish off. It took forever. I was considering the tru oil you buy in the gun shops.

 

I've seen some nice finishes done with that stuff but the guys who did the work said it takes a lot of drying time between very thin coats and a lot of elbow grease. I believe it takes a few weeks to get a professional looking finish with it.

-Gary

 

I used the spray on Tru-Oil. I like the depth in the grain appearance you get when using oil. The good thing about the spray is if you get any runs you can smooth it out with a swipe of the finger. It is a long process, twenty coats I used, and it took a month. Actual working time, maybe four hours. It is not the most durable finish, or the easiest, but for the price and the look you get with a nice grained wood, I think it is worth it. Repairs are also a little easier to blend in.

Tape off the checkering. The first application I used 400 grit sandpaper, and made a slurry to fill the pores with. Kind of rubbed it in to make it smooth. Not to much oil yet. After that coat dried, usually about 24 hours, I then sprayed five coats in five days. You really just need enough to give it a wet look. You can run over it with your finger tips to smooth it together. The tracks will level out. I then let it sit for a couple of days to harden. Then run over it again with folded over 400 grit wet sandpaper. Just enough to get the dust particles, and high spots. Not to much. Let it dry. Then apply ten or so coats, and sand with folded over 800 grit wet sandpaper. Again just enough to get it smooth. Then a final three coats, sand with 1000 grit wet sandpaper, and a final coat or two. I then will sand with 1000 grit wet sandpaper again to get the final dust and high spots, rub the stock with Brownell's number three rubbing compound, then polish to a mirror like shine with headlight lens polish. A little Liquid Glass car polish and stock looks like glass.

You have to let it harden before sanding it, usually a couple of days. If you don't it will gum up the paper. The final sanding, I waited a week before touching it after the final spraying.

Oh, did I mention it is a long process.

The photos show the final finish on the comb, with a greasy thumb print, and the stock after the rubbing of the number three.

 

Nice

 

Rocketfan, Try the Formby Tung oil https://www.formbys.com/products/tung_oil/ it does a nice job.

 

Tru-Oil works great. You can also get a beautiful finish with Boiled Linseed Oil. Either one takes time but Tru-Oil takes longer. Both are applied by hand.

 

Tru-Oil works great, if you apply it in thin coats by using your finger it will dry in a few hours then another coat can be applied. If you want to hurry the process place the stock in an encloser with a 40W bulb. This works great. Unless you have dust on the stock you donot have to sand in between each coat. After approximately 10 coats I sand with 1500 water sand paper then apply about 2 coats of Tru-Oil for the final finish. Very hard and durable.

 

Did you ever think about using a harder finish? Maybe someone could suggest one or show a result. The true oil is easy to repair but I would consider other options.

Smithy

 

Drying time is greatly reduced if you fashion a way to bake it. Sean

 

I've used Tru-oil for probably 35 years.
Tried other stuff - Watco's Danish Oil, double-boiled linseed oil, etc, - but I keep coming back to Tru-oil.
The trick is using a VERY thin coat and hand rubbibg it into the wood - rub it until your hand feels warm. Then place it in a dust-free area where you can forget about it for a day or two. The longer it dries between coats will strengthen it. Use enough coats so that the pores in the wood are completely filled. If it takes a month or two, well, it's worth it.

 

I have an older Browning that I also bought cheap and it was in rough shape. I stripped the stock of all the old finish and used a GOOD tongue oil. I got the oil warm by putting it in hot water in a pan. I would also heat up the wood (heat lamp or over a wood stove) and then rub the hell out of the wood with a lint free rag with the oil. It came out great and with oil finish you don't have a varnish chipping from time to time. The reason to heat things up is the oil will soak in better to the wood.

 

Please make sure the gun is not a salt gun, before putting a lot of time and work into it. Berky

 

So very true. Its easy to tell if it is a salt gun by looking at where the metal is touching the wood. If you see rust all over those points its a salt gun. Just replace the stock.

 

When you use the wet or dry paper, do you use it wet or dry? I have tried using tung oil as the wetting agent but have been wondering if water would work better.

 

Using tung oil as the wetting agent is a good way to fill the grain of the wood faster. After the grain is full I'd go to water.

 

Ken Cerney

If a person had refinished his stock with Birchwood Casey Tung Oil would he have to strip it to apply a coat of Formby tung oil or can he apply it over the Tung oil ?

 

All I have to say about Birchwood is DON'T USE IT. There are alot of better stuff out there then that crap.

 

From my experience, Pro-Custom oil from Brownell's produces a more attractive finish than Tru-Oil.

 

I am currently working on a couple stocks using pure tung oil. I have another stock that I refinished several years ago with Formby's. It was alright, but I was never quite satisfied with it. I grabed it up and put a couple of coats of the pure stuff on it and I think it is going to be better. Formby's is not pure oil, like Truoil, it is a mix of oil and poly.