Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Advice on stock finishes.

I have 2 Remington 722's of early 50's vintiage. One has a beat up stock requiring striping and reshaping and sanding. The other is good shape but part of varish is begining to peal.

What finish should I use to give an orginal factory look to these rifles.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Centex Bill

Formby's Furniture Refinisher is solvents that will move the remaining finish around on a 722, allow some of the dirt to be lifted and even up the finish. Do not sand it before the Formby's but fix the dings and scrapes by steaming and/or ironing with steam.

The finish is varnish and you can make a similar finish with most any commercial varnish cut with straight oil. BLO works fine. Apply very lightly to produce thin even coats. It will gloss up more than the original finish, but that can be taken down with rottenstone and oil on felt if desired.

The finish will be a little better than the original for weather protection, but not much.
art

Shellac is a close match for the old gun varnishes. You can get Bullseye brand at Lowes and some hardware stores. Amber will give it an old original look. Clear will give it a new look. You can get garnet colored flakes online for a subtle reddish hue that can not be achieved with any stain I have tried. Garnet goes great with dark work. Working with Shellac is different than other finishes, so there is a learning curve. The nice thing is that your experiments can be cleaned up with alcohol. It is also relatively easy to repair. Read up on it before starting though or you will find yourself making a mess. It can be applied with a brush or pad, but I prefer an airbrush. Keep each layer thin and let it dry hard before applying the next layer. Otherwise it will form a skin that will keep the underlying layers from drying for a very long time. Shellac does not cure, it only dries (fast). Each coat will be almost instantly tack free. But don�t be fooled. It needs to dry overnight before the next coat. To me, it is the best looking finish for old guns. It is hard to describe the way it catches light, but once you see it, you will always be able to identify it thereafter. Opinions vary.

Yup, opinions vary... on its own shellac will waterspot when rained on and provide minimal protection. I sometimes use it to bond two finishes together because it sticks to everything and everything sticks to it. But it is not suitable for a firearm topcoat.

Using the junk in big box stores, like Bullseye brand is a huge mistake. Only flake shellac is worthy of any use. For indoor furniture flake is great stuff...
art

After stripping, I use Tru-oil. When I have the desired finish, I seal it all up with Helsman Spar satin. It is an outdoor urethane.

RH

The OP asked how to replicate the factory finish... Spar varnish will be too shiney and thick for that task. Tru-Oil will get you there quicker, easier than the spar varnish.

I would also suggest using gloss spar varnish only and rubbing down the gloss to whatever you like. There really is quite a difference in the durability. Matting agents do nothing positive for finishes...
art

Bill, If you are still following this thread, feel free to PM me. The forum troll has given you some real bad advice. I don't have the time or inclination to get into a tit for tat pissing match just to educate someone who's entire life consists of posting on the internet. But I am willing to help offline when I have the time.

Ozzy,

You are a little off base here..

Like WAY off base.

First of all, most older factory guns 1850- 1960s were finished with oil VARNISHES- not SHELLAC.

Shellac is a crappy old 17th century INTERIOR GRADE finish made from shellac flakes which are disolved in a thinner. It is NOT water resitant, let alone water proof.

If you use it on guns, FINE. but don't critisize those who know it is a schitty gunstock finish. Hell, Tru -oil STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE applied by the rankest amature is TEN times the stock finish of Bulleye Shellac and no less authentic looking, because it is basically modified oil wiping varnish.

Remington never used shellac on ANY post WWII factory rifles.. Why advise someone to [bleep] up his 1950s era Remingtons with your low grade furniture shop bullschit?

And BTW, Art has probably fully finished more good stocks than you will even even look at in a lifetime. Internet or not.

So, yeah, take your piss poor stock finishing advice to the PMs where it belongs..

Ozzy
Sorry I was so kind to your original post and for wasting your time by trying to give you some advice of value. You clearly have the whole thing well in hand and I should never have interferred... Might be a pun in that hand thing, too...
art

It's been a while since I did any serious woodworking but I did quite a bit up until about '97. And though I've forgotten a lot about wood finishing since then, I remember enough about it to know I wouldn't use shellac on a gun I intended to use in the outdoors.

I wouldn't use shellac on anything that could possibly see water on it, be it gun or dining room table. Although I must say I have made some nice pocket change over the years re-finishing stuff that duffers used shellac on. In that respect I like it!

Art- have you ever used shellac as an inter-coat between a base layer of spar varnish and a top coat of polyurethane? I'm thinking in terms of having my cake and eating it too: the spar varnish for quicker "building"/ pore filling, and UV protection. The poly for it's wear resistance. I am aware of the warning that spar varnish, being flexible, will move with the wood and possibly seperate from the harder poly. I wonder if the shellac might mitigate that. (The project is a white oak kitchen table I'm building for a client but I'm also thinking in terms of future gunstocks too.)It usually takes 3 or 4 more build coats of poly to achieve what I get with seven or eight coats of Epifanes.

Good advise on the Satin/semi-gloss varnishes. You can always spot the newbie boat owners doing their exterior bright work (varnished surfaces) with that stuff.

Wow. And the Nuke has been here fer 3 years too. Bill, if you are still following this thread, look at Art's son's stockwork and finish. Not only can Art do incredible work, but he can share that information with others. He taught me the cyranoacrilate finish. Although I doubt you'd be interested in that method.

gnoahhh
That is exactly a use I have put it to several times and so far it has been perfect. Generally I use it to bond nitrocellulose to several different kinds topcoats for evening out the finish. I will also use it that way for padding lacquer French polishing. It keeps me from having to try to remove the nitrocrap.

I have also had good results by making layers of blended poly/spar with less spar as you move to the poly and it has been perfect, though it takes a few extra coats.
art

Thanks Art, I thought I was on the right track! (There is nothing to compare to the anguish of building and flattening a varnish finish on flat sawn white oak.)