Rem 11-87 stock refinish

[Porter24]

I picked up a 11-87 the other day as a project. What steps would you take to refinish it. I have read that my previous ways were wrong. I used a hand sander and heard you can just use a chemical to strip it and it would not take as much sanding. Also would you stain it or just use tru oil. Any imput would be great

 

[ghostwriter247]

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[240nmc]

Try Formby's Refinisher to remove the finish. If you go easy you may not take all the stain out of the wood. Light sanding and then us a spray bottle of water to "raise the grain" and remove the "hair" from the wood with light sanding using 400, 600, and 1000 grit paper. Aldo find some bronze wool in 000 or 0000. Don't use steel wool and be sure to use a good tack cloth to clean the dust from the wood.

I use Linseed oil and rub it on the stock and as they say, "work it". Alternate from oil to sanding with 0000 bronze or 1000 grit sand paper. If you are staining, put on a layer of linseed oil and then stain, then oil, oil, oil with sanding in between coats.

Depending on what you want, it takes time as you can get a good M1 military oil finish or go all the way to a hard Griffith and Howe smooth oil finish. It only takes time.

The raising of the grain was an important step for me to get a better finish on the wood. Google is your friend.

You can also use an iron with a wet rag to get rid of gouges in the wood. I was amazed at what that would do to a beat up stock. Bought a lot go cheap Garand and 03 stocks in the day that really cleaned up with an iron and a wet rag.




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[Porter24]

So you did not use any stain? And you used linseed oil to finish, rather than tru-oil

 

[240nmc]

Depends on the color of the wood. If I had a good looking piece of walnut, I just oiled and sanded. Just like art it is what you want. I haven't used tru-oil for no other reason than I always had linseed oil around and the guy who showed me a few tricks used it. I used to hand rub until it started to heat up but now a days, I'm a little more careful about what goes in your skin than what goes on the wood so I used gloves.




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[Nuke Man]

I'm going to be refinishing an old 22 this summer. From what I've seen guys are staining and using true oil to protect the finish. You can also use a polyurethane. Quite a few videos on YouTube on this subject to check out. Most use some sort of stripper to remove the old finish.