Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Durable finish for '03 A3 rifles for constant exposure.

My buddy is a volunteer for the Monday Squad for military honors at Ft. Snelling. Because none of the memorial squads have been working, they want him to re-finish to Springfields. Now there isn't a concern for resale - just a durable finish to withstand rain, snow, heat, and very cold temperatures. He is going to strip them and add a little stain. So what are your ideas out there for this project? He is a woodworker so he is not foreign to this type of work.

I did the same on five of our 03's at Tahoma National. Took them apart one at a time so we would still have rifles to cover services.
After sanding and hot ironing out some dimples. I refinished with Formby's. I gave all the metal surfaces a good wipe down with T-9. That's the stuff Boeing invented for metal protection.

Hated to leave that organization. I was very proud to honor our fellow warrior's on to their next mission.

Remington - was Formby's a multiple application or can it be a spray-on finish? Thanks for your service too!!

It was a apply, sand, apply, sand and apply kind of a deal. Took a couple of months to get all five done, but are they purdy.

Ok thank you. I'll give him the low down.

Minwax Wipe-on Poly (oil-based) is water proof and very durable. It is available in satin and gloss. Will go over stain easily. If the pores are already filled, it is ready to coat. If not use it to do this:http://www.woodworking.org/WC/GArchive99/1_20waltcunfin.html There is no better wood finish out there.

RAN

Minwax Wipe-on Poly is good finish and I use it for a number of things, however it is far from "waterproof" and there are many finishes better for waterproofing.

Never use anything other than gloss for any surface you want to be durable. Powdered silica is added to the satin and semi-gloss versions. As the top coat dries the silica within creates a rough surface to break up the gloss. It makes it significantly weaker and less "waterproof." Use gloss and rub it down with Scotchbright pads or rubbing compounds to your desired level of gloss.

If applied to unfilled wood surfaces repeatedly without sanding the mud into the pores it produces a far better finish than pre-filling or sanding in the slurry, especially in an application like typical military, open-pore walnut.

Because of the tremendous numbers of applications there are many situations where different woods do better with different finishes. For a lot of applications there are many finishes far better than MWP. I would not use it on a stock personally. I do use it on very fine-grained woods in quantity for interior uses. It is a good finish.

And good for the guys at Snelling. My dad ended up there with all his guard buddies from WWII and I expect to go there too.

The first Brownells Gunsmith Kinks book had instructions on how to thin original Acraglas and spray it for a stock finish. Never tried it but it sounds like it would be a sure fire waterproof finish. Since Harbor Freight has cheap alr brushes I am tempted to try it and just throw the sprayer away when through.
Another option would be clear Duracoat.
Whatever you use, a heavy coat of paste wax adds another layer of waterproofing.

That does sound like an excellent and durable finish. There are some boat builders that brush on epoxy coatings for a similar effect; my dad used that on the boat he built but I don't know what brand.

Daly's Sea Fin Teak oil is very good and easy to apply. It works well on boat bright work so it stands up to weather well. I brush or wipe it on sometimes with extra oil added but it can be sprayed too. They have a thinner version to use as a first filler coat. I just thin the regular for the first coat.

I like alkanet oil for a stain but if there is little to no figure any of the spirit based stains or Fiebergs leather stain will do. I like the Pilkington Winchester Pre 64 or Red Brown stain from Transtint. Your friend will probably want to use a filler or the job will take as long as developing a Covid-19 vaccine.

If the original finish needs to be stripped the easiest thing to do is to take them to a furniture stripping place and have them done all at once.