Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing dents in wood stock

hey all,
I'm thinking about a new gun with a beautiful wood stock, but it's the display model and has some dents in it because the gun store displays everything on metal coat hooks. They aren't deep, and they aren't sharp dents. I've heard my father talk about using an iron to take out the dents, but I've never done it. It's about $800 for a brand new CZ Royale, and I don't want to spend a lot of time/trouble to make it look new again. Any suggestions? Should I walk away, or buy it and have a new project to work on?

Thanks,
kstockfo

It's steaming dents out...wet cloth placed over the dent and apply heat from a soldering iron or clothing iron tip.
Steam is generated and causes the wood to swell back to normal if the grain isn't broken.

Does the finish need to be stripped before this is effective?

I have steamed out some target dents in Perazzis and a couple of Kolars. Sometimes the steam will make the area around the dent look hazy. Some 2000 wet paper and a small foam buffing pad and some automotive swirl remover will resolve it.

The hardest part sometimes is deciding how close is good enough. You really Really don't want to go through the finish.

No need to strip the stock

That's news to me. How do you steam out dents without committing to refinishing the whole thing?

It obviously depends on the size, depth and if the grain was broken. Spot finish is the way to go.

Very few finishes are truly waterproof. Apply a drop of water on the dimply, wait 10-15 minutes and heat with a heat gun, hair dryer, or damp rag and a steam iron. Usually takes a couple tries.

Cracks in the finish can usually be hidden completely with CA glue.

No need to refinish the whole stock.

Sandpaper is a no-no almost always.

Small dent: plaster a wet bandaid on it, sit overnight. Repeat as necessary. Works as often as not.

I use Tru Oil for refinishing a stock, and if I get a small dent or scratch, many times I will take a sewing needle pin and dip it into the bottle of Tru Oil and pick up just a very small amount as I can and just touch the tip of the needle on the dent/scratch.....let it dry overnight and repeat the next day....continue for several days until if is filled. If you take your time and do not rush you can usually get it back to acceptable to the eye. Just finished one doing just this.... took several days but looks great.

Try to get a deal on the gun and chemically strip it. Cz finishes come off easy and hide a lot of nice wood character. Attack the dents with steam and sand out if not too deep is my suggestion.

The finish on a CZ is porous enough that raising the dents should be easy to do. GD

I know about SuperGlue but I was thinking about real dents that need a very hot iron and a wet rag. That process of steaming really buggers the finish up
all around the dents. I guess I've just done too many old mil-surp in the past year. I'm not really familiar with CZ's finish but steam changes things.

I refinished a couple of rifle stocks years ago and the wet cloth and iron worked for me. It was after I chemically removed the finish and oil from the wood.

I've always been a bit leary about using steam while the finish is still on the wood when steaming out dents. What you are doing is basically forcing steam through the finish to expand the ding- where does that moisture go once it is under the finish and the heat is removed? Seems like a recipe for problems down the road...

I do a lot of them on a regular basis and often on very high-end stuff. The number one objective is almost Hippocratic "Do no harm!" An extremely hot iron is not the right answer. A dot of water under a bandaid as gnoahhh calls it trumps an aggressively hot iron. I warm gently with a heat gun with a dot of water. Replace every time it evaporates away. Then cover with painters tape for a day. It does not take extreme heat; it takes time and a bit of patience.

Sandpaper should be avoided at all costs. Most watermarking finishes are extremely easy to fix after steaming. They produce tiny spots that disappear with a tiny dot of a solvent. The best starting point is denatured alcohol. Go more active if that is not enough. CA fills the hole if one exists after the raising process.

The more you allow the stuff to work on its own the easier the repair will be.

I recently repaired a dent from a dropped bolt that broke the surface of the auto clear coat finish.

I steamed it with water in rag and hot pointed piece of flat steel several times over 2-3 days to raise it as much as possible.

A small dent remained so I dotted it with the same brand of auto clear coat and let it make a very thin pool over the dent with a slight meniscus.

Sanded with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000 wrapped around pencil eraser and polished.... same as when finishing newly sprayed stock.

Dent is indistinguishable.

@Sitka Deer:

I'll try your heat gun routine next time.

Do you repeat the painters tape until satisfaction or just do that once?

Rick M.

I usually give it a few tries.