Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing How to steam dents from a wood stock?????

I have heard of this but never done it.Does anyone know how????Thanks ahead Huntz

Take a very damp paper towel fold it up a few times and take a clothes iron and be careful and work directly over the dent and get it good and hot and keep working at it till you raise up the dent. Sometimes it will be close to perfect, sometimes it will get better but not perfect. Make sure you keep track of the dampness of the folded paper towel, keep wetting it down as you work the dent through the process. It has taken me 10-20 mins to work them out. Good luck and be carefull not to burn the stock with the iron. It's not a difficult job to do. BTW if you have other small scratches or dents you could use Guardsmans Furniture Touch Up pens, they come in a 3 pack at walmart, light shade, medium shade, and a darker shade. They work great for touching up nicks.

Jas

Same experience, only difference is I used cloth, a gun patch, and put a drop of water or two on the dent first to get the water to soak in. Works well.

I have also usd a wood burning tool instead of the iron for small spots

Thanks guys, for the info,Huntz.

+1, an old 2.00 soldering iron cloth patches, eye dropper for the mass of compressions.

I have used all of the above methods at one time or another in a career of woodworking and they all work. You also might try wetting a band-aid and sticking it over the dent. Let it on while doing something else- come back later, or the next day- voila!

My approach has been to orient the stock such that a few drops of water will stay in place to effectively moisten the wood beneath. I keep some surface water on the spots for about 45 minutes and while away the time reading or watching TV. I then go after them with the tip of a hot iron. One can actually get some dents above the surrounding surface. Let dry and then lightly sand level. Very effective.

If you're stripping the stock anyhow- I'll use my stripping agent, and when its done take the whole works over to the tub and scrub the whole thing down with hot water and my cleaner, two or three different sized brass brushes to scrub the action area out (one of my peeves is seeing a refinished stock that received NO attention in the mortising)that hot water bath does lift most of the minor compressions out.
Then, an hour or two later when its dry, focus on the worse of them.

For really bad dents, I've poked holes in the dent and the surrounding area with a pin. This helps the swelling process and the pinholes disappeared after using a hot iron. Using wet cotton patches will also remove stubborn stain that is left in the wood that didn't come out w/ a stripper

Key is take your time and the dents WILL disappear.