Refinshing a pine gunstock

[Ross Lowry]

Hi everyone,

I am refinishing my shotgun stock and found out it is actually pine that has been stained walnut and finished. Does anyone have any advice on the best way to refinish this? I was thinking about using a gel stain and finish all in one?
Thanks

[Steve Schoene]

Unless this was cobbled up by some former owner, I doubt it is pine, but rather some light colored hardwood like birch or even poplar.

Refinishing can certainly be done. First, remove all the old finish--I recommend chemical stripper since you need to restain, and sanding is just too uneven a process to leave the wood in condition to accept dye or stain well.

There are several approaches. You can, for example, use aerosol spray products from makers such as Mohawk which has toners with either dye and pigment colors. Use dye toner if you like the grain to see on the stripped wood and just want to color it, and use pigmented toner if you want to obscure the grain. These help avoid blotching problems that come from trying to stain the light diffuse porous hardwoods which it is likely you have, (or pine in the unlikely chance that's what you really have.) You will have to buy these on-line from a distributor since the company has a hefty minimum order and few (any?) retail outlets.

You could also start by directly dyeing the wood, flooding on a water soluble powdered dye solution to get the right base color, sealing with a thinned coat of your top coat, applying a gel stain to deepen the color and then applying a top coat. If you want an oil finish type appearance, you would omit the gel stain and use a polymerized oil, such as TruOil over the dye. TruOil is available at most shops that sell guns.

[Ross Lowry]

Hi Steve,

Here is a picture of the stock, maybe you can tell what kind of wood it is.

[Scott Holmes]

Looks like maple to me. Could be soft maple... can you dent it with your fingernail?

[Ross Lowry]

Hey Scott,

No I cant. Guess that should of been a dead giveaway it wasn't pine.
I still got a bit of sanding to do before I am ready for the staining.

[Scott Holmes]

Probably sugar (hard) maple then. Soft maple is only a little harder than pine.

Maple does not stain well. A dye would work much better. Then a clear coat; anything but polyurethane...

[Henry Ambrose]

Most likely birch.
What model gun is it from?
A pump or auto shotgun of some sort.

You can stain it but it might look most "factory like" with a glaze coat to give it a uniform color. There are plenty of choices depending on how you want it to look when you're done.

[Ross Lowry]

Hi Henry,

Its an old pump Westernfield, a Montgomery Wards gun.
Iwould like it to look as close to walnut as I can. I am also going to do some engraving on it as well.

[Angie Orfanedes]

Yep, don't use stain - it will have a difficult time time evenly soaking into the close grain hardwood. Buy some die (Woodcraft)- the kind you mix with alcohol...think Transtint is the brand name. Start with a dilute mixture, and work your way up to the color you are looking for. Then finish with Tru-oil.

[Ross Lowry]

Hi Angie,

I have never used dye before so I should probably get some extra birch or maple to practice on. Is there any specials colors I need to mix together to get a rich walnut color, or just start off with a diluted brown tint and work my way up?

[Scott Holmes]

TransTints has a few "walnut" shades in their line-up.