Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 23B stock refinish

I got a completely trashed 23B a few years ago, the only thing that was good on the gun was the bore. The metal was even painted black, compete with runs everywhere. I repaired the stock, finished it, then polished and blued the metal. I never saw a decent original finish on any 23, but read on here that they were varnished. I stained with red mahogany (Minwax I think) then used Helmsman spar urethane to finish it. It took a few coats of finish, scraped with furniture scrapers between coats, to fill the grain then a few thin coats rubbed on and wiped off with cheap napkins (think fast food joints). Cheap napkins don't absorb much, and allow some finish to remain. After that, a coat of paste wax rubbed in, and it was done. Since it came with five extra holes drilled for who knows what scope mounts, I drilled a couple more and mounted a Lyman Alaskan that I had. Also, I figured some checkering would look nice, so looked online and found a picture of the factory checkering on a 23D. I enlarged the picture to life size, covered the screen with saran wrap and traced the pattern.