Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions stripping a marlin's finish

Anyone have any good suggestions for stripping the finish on a marlin 336 stock?

I use aircraft stripper, then a razor blade to scrape the finish off. It takes a while, but it works well. The aircraft stripper will make the finish bubble up and harden, and then the razor blade "chips" it off. As long as you are careful, you wont scratch the wood.

The finish Marlin uses is very tough, nothing I have found will chemically remove it alone.

Karnis has said to submerse the stock in acetone overnight, and this will also dissolve oils that have darkened the wood.

Every marlin stock I have stripped has been pretty oil free and light colored under the lacquer finish. I would imagine the acetone would work well, though.

Well I ended up finding a suggestion for citristrip so I bought some and gave it a go today. Directions say 24 hours but the previous user said 3-4 hours and I went 3 hours.

It did a very good job and removed most of the finish. I think four hours probably would have done the trick 100%.

I will post some pics at some point.

+1 on the citrus products. I used CITRISTRIP from Lowes. I was amazed how fast and how well it worked. Brush it on thick and hang it up for a few hours. You end up with a paste-like sludge that you can remove with a Scotchbrite pad liberally doused with mineral spirits. Do that work with latex gloves in a spackle bucket or plastic pail with two or three cups of mineral spirits in the bottom; keep rinsing the pad in the bottom of the bucket. That helps you get the remnants out of the checkering and the other tiny spaces without scratching the stock. Afterwards, just hang the stock up on a bent coathanger in a dry area and let the mineral spirits completely evaporate; we're talking 48-72 hours here. You'll end up with bare wood with little or no expenditure of elbow grease. Sand lightly with 300 grit, wipe with a tack cloth, and then put the Watco Danish Oil to it with a clean rag. I went with the dark, but next time I'll use the neutral for something different. If you want to urethane it to toughen the finish, avoid brushing urethane on. Use a satin finish spray product, and you'll have fewer drips and runs. Three or four very light coats oughta do it. Wet sand with 600 grit between coats. 0000 steel wool the final coat instead of the 600 grit. Butchers wax if you must, but I didn't. Have fun.

Yes, definitely rubber gloves and safety glasses.

Here is what I ended up with. I didn't take any pics of raw wood after stripping but had very very little work to do.

This before pics don't show the dings but was able to lift them all.

As a finish I used a product I have used before I got from Brownells call Gun Sav'r Custom oil in satin. Made by Chem pak.

Very nice !

Turned out great. I did the same thing to one of mine. Nice job!

Nice job!!!

That turned out great, glad to find this.

Thanks for the tutorial. Sounds like a good stripper product. What an improvement!