I purchased an older vintage Parker exported factory sport
Mauser. Nice rifle in .243 with great Walnut quality checkered
stock but has a pretty good scratch in stock. Scratch
towards butt pad no where near checkering but kinda deep.
It was about 4 inches x 1/32 deep; now about 1/2 of a 1mm deep.
Near top quality English walnut. Hard, just a bit dark from
decades of oil finish.I have it sanded and raised the
grain up close to surface with the moist rag iron method. Do
not want to over do that and am close to flush. Was wondering
about some kind of wood sanding prep solution or perhaps shellac
and then sand finish? Looking for advice from a pro.
Thank you!
Sanding it out will create flat spots that do not follow the other contours unless you remove a lot of wood.
If there was wood removed in the scratch that may be your only "easy" option.
Try pre-heating the area with an iron and a little paper, no water. When it gets too hot to touch wet it with boiling water. I usually make a dam all the way around it with plastic modeling clay and get the wood very hot with the boiling water. Leave it wet for at least five minutes, maybe 10. Dry it with a heat gun or blow drier and set aside for a day to dry down deep.
I am betting the wood will have swollen enough to fill the scratch. Sand it very lightly with a block and do not try to get everything perfect on the dry stock. Finish the scratched area first with oil (assuming you are going to go back with oil) and apply heavily, let sit for 10 minutes and wipe dry. Let it cure for at least a few hours and repeat at least four or five times.
Then wet sand with water using a block. Now is the time to make everything perfect before finishing the rest of the stock. Fill any holidays in the wood or finish with superglue. The glue requires a great deal of care because it is much harder than the wood, sanding it causes issues. A fine file is needed to level the superglue.
Amine catalyst for the superglue makes the curing time instantaneous.
The superglue will likely disappear in an oil finish.
Yes. I have built dams with clay as well and let the scratch/dent soak for several hour before attempting a heat lift.
Like said above, some serious sanding can probably take it out too, but one may have to adjust the contours a bit. Not too hard as most stocks are simply a series of blended flats. Just use sanding blocks and lots of patience.
I have done scads of repairs in high-end stocks that were far worse than yours sounds and had the owner unable to find the ding... take your time and it will go easy...
SITKA AND 1Min -
Thanks a bunch, great advice!
Get some shellac sticks from Brownells. You can get a shade to match your stock and with a little practice you can fill the scratch so no one will see it. I've done this many times with old rifles, there is no need to sand the original finish and if it's got a bit of dirt and goop on the stock so much the better. You can fill the scratch, contour it with a fine file to match to good wood and blend it with the existing finish/goop with a bit of what ever solvent works. I've done a number of stocks and after a year I can't tell where I did the work much less anyone else. The dark and medium sticks work best for me, plus it's an old technique, no one can say when it was done if they do happen to find the work. Beats trying to refinish an entire stock and loosing all that patina and originality.
Best.