Any Stock Finishers here ? I have a couple questions

[CjC73]

So I bought this stock unfinished and got shaped the way I want, bottom metal and action have been bedded by me. I've sanded to 400 grit and applied a heavy coat of Arrow oil and these marks became visible and arose a few questions for those with a lot more experience than me.

1. Are the vertical marks (a couple in the butt area and the ones by my hand in the second picture) tooling marks left by who cut the stock? If so, do I just sand that area more and try to remove them?
2. The black areas on the cheek piece; is that just a characteristic of walnut (stock is claro walnut)?
3. The small black spots and lines all over the stock; are these wood pores? When I sanded, I didn't wipe off any of the dust and oiled over it, thinking it would fill in the pores with the dust (was told this by an experienced stock builder/finisher). Well, obviously they're still there and I'd like them to go away to create a better surface.

So what would my next steps be?

thanks,

 

[Bret GRAVELINE Graveline]

Your stock is fine and looks ready to go, what you're seeing is the natural figure of the stock, the vertical marks you are looking at is referred to as fiddle back, we pay extra for that kind of figure, I finished my first stock over 50 years ago, I've used just every finish on the market as well as many home brews, when I finish a stock of my own depending on the finish I desire, I use brownells permalyn stock finish if I want a satin finish, if I want a high gloss finish I use Birchwood Casey's Tru-oil, reguardless of final finish I always start with permalyn, its a very thin liquid that gets down into the wood helps strengthen the grain of the wood that is a big help when checkering, it also fills the pores nicely, permalyn also offers a stock filler but I prefer to use the stock finish for that, it works just as well but takes a extra coat or 2 to fill the pores, when a high finish is desired, I start with the permalyn, once the pores are all filled and you have a good base i start with the Tru-Oil, to get a really deep gloss finish it requires 50 to 60 coats allied with small amounts of finish rubbed in with the palm of my hand, on warm days you can apply 3 to5 coats, at this point I let set overnight rub out any streaks of irregularities and start over, its a long process but the end results are worth it, once I'm satisfied I have the finish built up a rub it out with stock seen conditioner,

 

[Straight Shooter]

Looks like a Richard's microfit stock.

 

[1snowcat]

No expert here but, I worked in a custom cabinet shop for close to 10 yrs... The vertical lines are part of the great part of walnut, (desirable) fiddleback, looks like a very good looking hunk of wood you have there! You might sand to 600 or 800 grit before being perfectly smooth but, the marks you speak of will NOT go away ... Hand rubbed oil finish takes lots of coats to fill but, looks amazing when you are done! Good luck and keep sanding and coating it, the best part is if it's not smooth enough to suit you, just keep sanding with a finer grit til you get the desired look you want, biggest mistake people make is trying to jump from 150 grit to 400 rather than going 150, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800 etc...

Bonus is you can take it down and redo any part if you aren't satisfied!

After you get the finish where you want it (coating wise), find a stock checkering person to lay out the checkering pattern, or try it yourself (a task that is NOT easy especially on your nice piece of wood for your first time) only finish the checkered area a couple coats to seal it up, just dont go overboard and apply too many coats to the checkered area or it will start to build in the checkering and look terrible..This is where a few is good but, too much finish is a BAD thing...

Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil fan here also, and scuff lightly using 0000 steel wool in between coats or use 1200 grit between coats and wipe down with tack cloth to remove small imperfections that get knocked off during the sanding process...

I forgot to mention, before you lay finish on it you can lightly wet entire stock, and let air dry, which is essentially raising the grain, and re-sanding entire stock after it dries to smooth out the grain again after it was raised by wetting the stock, using your finest desired grit before applying finish to keep the wood fibers from standing up as much after the first coat of finish is applied.

 

[1snowcat]

Here is a 870 I refinished... it looked terrible wish I had a picture before I started it was rattle canned o.d. green to start when I bought it at a Pawn shop.

 

[Dean2]

Your stock is fine and looks ready to go, what you're seeing is the natural figure of the stock, the vertical marks you are looking at is referred to as fiddle back, we pay extra for that kind of figure, I finished my first stock over 50 years ago, I've used just every finish on the market as well as many home brews, when I finish a stock of my own depending on the finish I desire, I use brownells permalyn stock finish if I want a satin finish, if I want a high gloss finish I use Birchwood Casey's Tru-oil, reguardless of final finish I always start with permalyn, its a very thin liquid that gets down into the wood helps strengthen the grain of the wood that is a big help when checkering, it also fills the pores nicely, permalyn also offers a stock filler but I prefer to use the stock finish for that, it works just as well but takes a extra coat or 2 to fill the pores, when a high finish is desired, I start with the permalyn, once the pores are all filled and you have a good base i start with the Tru-Oil, to get a really deep gloss finish it requires 50 to 60 coats allied with small amounts of finish rubbed in with the palm of my hand, on warm days you can apply 3 to5 coats, at this point I let set overnight rub out any streaks of irregularities and start over, its a long process but the end results are worth it, once I'm satisfied I have the finish built up a rub it out with stock seen conditioner,

Spot on advice.

 

[Dean2]

No expert here but, I worked in a custom cabinet shop for close to 10 yrs... The vertical lines are part of the great part of walnut, (desirable) fiddleback, looks like a very good looking hunk of wood you have there! You might sand to 600 or 800 grit before being perfectly smooth but, the marks you speak of will NOT go away ... Hand rubbed oil finish takes lots of coats to fill but, looks amazing when you are done! Good luck and keep sanding and coating it, the best part is if it's not smooth enough to suit you, just keep sanding with a finer grit til you get the desired look you want, biggest mistake people make is trying to jump from 150 grit to 400 rather than going 150, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800 etc...

Bonus is you can take it down and redo any part if you aren't satisfied!

After you get the finish where you want it (coating wise), find a stock checkering person to lay out the checkering pattern, or try it yourself (a task that is NOT easy especially on your nice piece of wood for your first time) only finish the checkered area a couple coats to seal it up, just dont go overboard and apply too many coats to the checkered area or it will start to build in the checkering and look terrible..This is where a few is good but, too much finish is a BAD thing...

Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil fan here also, and scuff lightly using 0000 steel wool in between coats or use 1200 grit between coats and wipe down with tack cloth to remove small imperfections that get knocked off during the sanding process...

I forgot to mention, before you lay finish on it you can lightly wet entire stock, and let air dry, which is essentially raising the grain, and re-sanding entire stock after it dries to smooth out the grain again after it was raised by wetting the stock, using your finest desired grit before applying finish to keep the wood fibers from standing up as much after the first coat of finish is applied.

This is more really good advice.

Only thing to add, you can speed up dewhiskering by using a propane torch to quickly dry the wetted wood. When sanding off the whiskers use 800 wet and dry and sand cross grain very lightly; keeps from just laying the whiskers back downn

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

So I bought this stock unfinished and got shaped the way I want, bottom metal and action have been bedded by me. I've sanded to 400 grit and applied a heavy coat of Arrow oil and these marks became visible and arose a few questions for those with a lot more experience than me.

1. Are the vertical marks (a couple in the butt area and the ones by my hand in the second picture) tooling marks left by who cut the stock? If so, do I just sand that area more and try to remove them?
2. The black areas on the cheek piece; is that just a characteristic of walnut (stock is claro walnut)?
3. The small black spots and lines all over the stock; are these wood pores? When I sanded, I didn't wipe off any of the dust and oiled over it, thinking it would fill in the pores with the dust (was told this by an experienced stock builder/finisher). Well, obviously they're still there and I'd like them to go away to create a better surface.

So what would my next steps be?

thanks,
View attachment 500973View attachment 500974View attachment 500975

This is a really nice piece of wood. If you finish properly it will look like a million bucks!
I have finished/refinished a lot of stock in my time.
Do it right the first time and you probably won't want to take it out of your home.
Send us a PM if you want to discuss.
Thanks and I am sure that you will do a beautiful job on this.
Len & Jill
PM me

 

[CjC73]

So is it too late to put a filler on like permalyn? How do you know when the pores are filled?

So continue putting light coats of oil on and in between coats, wet the stock, let dry and lightly sand with 800 or 1000. And just keep putting on the layers? I'd like a glossy finish in the end.

 

[tribb]

Your stock is fine and looks ready to go, what you're seeing is the natural figure of the stock, the vertical marks you are looking at is referred to as fiddle back, we pay extra for that kind of figure, I finished my first stock over 50 years ago, I've used just every finish on the market as well as many home brews, when I finish a stock of my own depending on the finish I desire, I use brownells permalyn stock finish if I want a satin finish, if I want a high gloss finish I use Birchwood Casey's Tru-oil, reguardless of final finish I always start with permalyn, its a very thin liquid that gets down into the wood helps strengthen the grain of the wood that is a big help when checkering, it also fills the pores nicely, permalyn also offers a stock filler but I prefer to use the stock finish for that, it works just as well but takes a extra coat or 2 to fill the pores, when a high finish is desired, I start with the permalyn, once the pores are all filled and you have a good base i start with the Tru-Oil, to get a really deep gloss finish it requires 50 to 60 coats allied with small amounts of finish rubbed in with the palm of my hand, on warm days you can apply 3 to5 coats, at this point I let set overnight rub out any streaks of irregularities and start over, its a long process but the end results are worth it, once I'm satisfied I have the finish built up a rub it out with stock seen conditioner,

This all above should work very well depending on how it reacts to the oil you already applied. If the oil needs to be removed use lacquer thinner. This also removes finger prints etc as well ! You will need to refill the pores x2 !! Remember you can get wet or dry sand paper way on up to 2000 grit and beyond !!! A hand scraper or a piece of broken window glass may also be used to scrape those dried whiskers also. And that doesn't make new whiskers like sanding does! Good luck and do not x10 be in a hurry!!

 

[Bret GRAVELINE Graveline]

When properly sanded you done need to go beyond 400 wet an dry, I know one of the better stock makers in the country claims he never goes beyond 320, its not to late permalink works well with most other finishes if not all, if it were me, I'd hit that stock with some 320, take a damp wash cloth and totally wipe the stock down, then knock down any high spots of raised wood, claro is a little more porous than other types of walnut, repeat it one more time with 400, once you have knocked it down again then use the permalyn, it usually takes about a half dozen coats to fill the pours, depending on the density of the grain, so sometimes less sometimes more, after each coat has dried, rub the stock down with 0000 steel wool down to bare wood, after about 6 coats again give or take you should have a evenly finished stock, the finish is now in the wood, if you like the way the satin finish looks wipe down with a good gun stock wax, I like Birchwood casey, sloppy a thin coat and let dry, I does this several times, if you prefer a high loss which on some guns a do skip the wax until you have the loss you are looking for, im sure that peace of.wood is going to look outstanding once completed

 

[tribb]

L

This all above should work very well depending on how it reacts to the oil you already applied. If the oil needs to be removed use lacquer thinner. This also removes finger prints etc as well ! You will need to refill the pores x2 !! Remember you can get wet or dry sand paper way on up to 2000 grit and beyond !!! A hand scraper or a piece of broken window glass may also be used to scrape those dried whiskers also. And that doesn't make new whiskers like sanding does! Good luck and do not x10 be in a hurry!!

 

[1snowcat]

So is it too late to put a filler on like permalyn? How do you know when the pores are filled?

So continue putting light coats of oil on and in between coats, wet the stock, let dry and lightly sand with 800 or 1000. And just keep putting on the layers? I'd like a glossy finish in the end.

I'm not familiar with the filler you are using, typically filler would be used prior to finish....
I would not wet stock after you start finishing process, typically the wetting process is done on bare wood... not that you can't wet the finish but, the grain probably won't raise a lot after finish coats have been applied.
Have fun it's very enjoyable!

 

[hesse]

You have a beautiful stock . A little bit of lite standing and good stock sealer make sure you do the entire stock to seal out moisture. Good luck