Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing buffing out a scuffed stock

What is the best way (if any) to buff out scuff marks on a high gloss finish walnut stock. Scuff is about 1/4" wide and an inch long - looks like from being in a truck gunrack.

As always, thanks for the help.

The scuffed area will have to be sanded out and then polished with progressively finer abrasives until the luster is what you want it to be... Where the shoe gets tight is making the entire stock look the same...

It will be virtually impossible to make the repaired spot look like the original gloss finish... that usually requires chemicals and lots of experience with them. Far easier to use an abrasive such as rottenstone in oil on a felt rag to reduce the entire surface to a fine eggshell luster.

If you do it that way use very long strokes and cover as much of the stock as you can with each stroke. If you try to make lots of small spots the blending process will take the rest of your life and will never be done...

Hello Slammer,

I have a Ruger MK1 that took a beating when it was dropped twice by my young son while I was packing out a deer. He was exhausted carrying his equipment and mine and tripped over rocks on the way out of the back country. The stock slammed against rough rocks and dented the wood and scuffed the finish. Here's how I repaired a major portion of the damage. I cleaned fingerprints and dirt from the area with solvent. Then removed the flaked finish and debris with a #11 X-acto blade, then filled the void with Flecto Varathane varnish. You have to daub the finish into the dent so as to build it up and let it dry for several days. It took three coats. When the varnish filled the dent I took 320 wet/dry sand paper and leveled the new finish to the original finish. There were slight dimples remaining so I daubed on another coat of varnish and let it dry. What you are trying to do is blend in the new varnish with the original finish, so go slow and sand lightly using water and a soft rag to clean up often. I used white auto polish compound to do the final blending and polish to match the sheen of the original. The repair looks like new BUT the the center of the dents appears a little lighter where the wood was compressed. I did not attempt to match the color of the wood, just fill the dents and scuffs. The FV varnish was a good match for the finish on the stock.

Cheers,

mmman

mmman
Welcome to the fire!

A little water on your ding would have lifted the crushed wood right back up to flush and saved a bunch of grief. Thin your Varathane with oil to improve blending. Apply fairly heavy and allow to sit for about ten minutes and wipe completely dry and the blending will just happen...
art

Argh, what stock? A rem 700 needs to be repaired differently than one with a varnish or oil finish!

best, CWG