Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Finishing a Laminate Stock - tips

Curious of the different ways some of you finish laminate/or wood stocks for that matter.

I have two unfinished laminate blanks I need to finish. Now I have done this before and have a good idea what to do and the results have been good. However, I really like the high gloss weatherby type finish on these stocks and I never can seem to get there. I always seem to get to a semi gloss finish and can never get that final full gloss.

I always sand down the wood to 400 grit finish, raise the grains multiple times and sand down. Then I will seal and sand with Birchwood Casey sealer. I finish with tru oil/reducer 50/50 mix and sand in the finish with 600 grit paper. I usually do 12-15 coats and by the last coat its usually the shine I want by uneven so when I rub it out with say minwax, it will even it out but cut the shine down.

Any thing I am missing here or other ways to go about this?

A full gloss finish requires a surface film ( like automotive clear-coat makes the color base coat shine). You can use nitro cellulose lacquer( easy) or polyurethane varnish (more difficult) or real catalyzed automotive clear coat (most difficult) About 5 coats fully cured will give enough film depth to allow sanding out defects and then polishing with automotive polishing compounds to get that mirror finish. If you have access to automotive paint spraying equip, automotive clear-coat is the primo choice. The next step down is some variety of polyurethane varnish ( Minwax Wipe 0n Poly is a good one). After full cure( 2 weeks) it is hard and ready for sanding and polishing. The easiest clear coat to apply( and least durable) is nitrocellulose lacquer, sprayed on. Dries in a day or two and is ready to sand and polish to full mirror.

Grit progression for sanding( wet) is approx. 600 , 1200, 2000 . Then polish with electric buffer using one of the commercial polishing compounds used for clear coats.

If you cut through the clear coat at any point, you must stop and recoat to regain film thickness. The beauty of lacquer is the new coats meld into the previous coats so that the interface disappears. This is not true for the others, so make sure there is plenty of film thickness before starting the sanding. Also be careful of sharp edges.

RAN

I would be tempted to take it to an Auto Paint & Body shop and let them do it. They will have all the equipment and expertise and then you could do the final rub out and polishing. I have heard of people having this done for a case of beer if you wait till they are already clear coating a car. There is a good tutorial on this type of finish on a synthetic stock it goes into detail on the polishing steps. Google painting a synthetic stock and you should find it.

Automotive clear coat in a rattle can, it is just so damn easy, build it up in thin coats sanding as necessary