I have probably used Tru-oil to finish about 100 stocks over the yrs. Up to 10 coats or a couple more on some and they looked nice but man they didn't look nothing like yours!!!!!! I know how much work it takes to just remove the Dupont finish from a Rem stock and then to get the project to look like yours finished I must commend you on your persistence and perseverance! You picked an above average piece of factory wood to rescue and have a right to be proud of the finished project.
I must ask, usually I would just keep knocking coats back until grain was filled then another coat or two, did you let cure than sand to knock off gloss and reapply to get that depth? I am just really impressed!
Respectfully,
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
I've decided to add the full work detail below which I had saved in my Microsoft "WORD" folder. It will be for the benefit of of those who would be interested to know what I did in detail.
I'll answer your question here;
I have a total of 22 coats of Tru-Oil on the finished stock. And an additional 4 on just the black plastic grip, forend, and butt plate sides. Keep in mind that every coat during the project was allowed to dry and then got sanded or steel wooled in between the coats. The only exception where I didn't sand between coats was with the first 2 coats of T.O onto the black plastic because I wanted a thick protective barrier to start with that would't sand through and into the plastic.
I started with auto "adhesion spray" on the plastic and applied 2 separate coats of 50/50 onto the plastic. (I chose 50/50% T.O to mineral spirits so it spread and dried more evenly on plastic) I had the wood masked at the white line spacers so only the black plastic got T.O. I applied the 2 coats and then removed the masking and applied 4 thick layers of 50/50 to the whole stock including the plastic. (I sanded/wooled each of those 4 coats level) This now gave me a 6 layer finish over the black plastic as a protective coating that I could continue on without fear of sanding into the plastic. I also chose the 50/50 with mineral spirits to soak easier into the wood. But all the remaining 16 coats were 100% T.O. applied thin to medium thickness. The remaining 16 coats of 100% T.O, were mainly to fill in the grain and arrive at a smooth surface free of grain depressions.
At about 16 coats, the grain started to finally disappear. For the 17th coat, I spent time individually covering EACH and EVERY grain depression with a thick dab of T.O. I used a Q-Tip to apply the T.O. When I sanded down the the dried Q-Tip mounds with 1000-1500 paper, the grain was pretty much now gone. The remaining few coats and light sanding with steel wool or 2000 grip paper just leveled out things more, so the auto polish could be applied last.
A word about using stain;
Because I had chosen to use a stain (and NOT do a natural wood finish), I later regretted following min-wax directions on the can, and sanded the stock (with checkering masked of course) as suggested mainly with 220 grit paper. I applied the "pre-stain" and the color stain onto the 220 sanded stock with wide open grain depressions and wood fibers that fluffed up. Min-wax and other companies suggest NOT going finer then 220 grit, because they say the wood grain gets too tight and doesn't absorb the stain as easily.
BS!! I had to apply a couple of extra coats of stain and do a lot of touch-up with the stain anyway to get a desired balanced coverage. So, I should have just used my better instincts and sanded the stock with 220, 400 and 600 grit before applying the min-wax "pre-stain" conditioner and min-wax stain. just like I had done with my Richards stock 15 years earlier.(which came out beautiful) That was bad advice to follow and caused many days and hours of filling and sanding the deep grain depressions with T.O. If I ever refinished a BDL stock again, I would elect to use the standard sanding-dust slurry method filling the grain with dust-slurry that naturally comes from the 400-600 paper in the process. (like I did with my Richards stock).
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Work detail I saved into my Microsoft Word Folder;
This is an old style Remington 700 BDL stock with stamped Fleur-De-Lise checkering that was produced between the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I put 22 coats of Tru-Oil on it, plus an additional 4 coats on the plastic grip & forend for 26 coats total. Stripping the old Remington epoxy finish was tedious using the new weaker paint-strippers mandated by new Nov 2019 Fed regulation. You have to be careful not to damage the checkering or melt the plastic parts. After numerous sessions of stripping it with the edge of a credit card, and also rinsing it with paint thinner during the stripping, the 99% stripped stock had to be carefully scrubbed & rinsed with wood bleach using a toothbrush & toothpick inside the checkering patterns. After that, the checkering was masked, and the stock was sanded with 220 grit paper as advised by min-wax, and the wood was prepped with min-wax “pre-stain”, and then my choice of the min-wax “gunstock #231” color stain was applied. The plastic tip and grip cap was sprayed with an auto “adhesion spray” so that Tru-oil would be sure to adhere to it. My advice is to start with a 220 grit paper as min-wax suggests,
but also use 400 through 600 paper for the finest finish. If you apply stain, you will need to do touch-ups & apply it in areas where it doesn’t absorb enough into the wood. So I found that there was no need to purposely confine myself to the min-wax recommended 220 grit to supposedly help the stain flow into the wood easier. Each of the 22 Tru-Oil coats required at least 2 to 3 hours drying time with sanding & 0000 steel wool between coats. I would often apply a 2nd coat at night so that it had until the next day to dry thoroughly before I applied more coats. To fill the deep wood grain, most of the Tru-Oil was purposely sanded off between coats. Filling and leveling the wood grain with Tru-Oil required about the first 16 coats alone before I finally arrived at a smooth surface. For the those first 15 or so coats, the grain was stubborn and kept showing through strong, and I started to become discouraged early on and wondered if I’d ever have a smooth stock at this rate. The 16th coat started showing that the grain was filling. The 17th application of T.O. was applied directly in all of the remaining shallow wood grain depressions with a Q-tip in thick dabs. The next day when I sanded the stock, all the grain depressions were gone and the stock suddenly reached the state of looking and feeling smooth like glass. Alas! At that 17th coat I had finally arrived at Nirvana! Good Lord, it seemed to take forver! The final 22nd coat of Tru-Oil was allowed to dry for 16 days and was then hand buffed with delicate “MeGuiar’s ScratchX 2.0” auto polish, & then sealed with Johnson’s Paste Wax. I had sanded the surface smooth with 2000 paper and 0000 steel wool between the latter 7 or so coats so that the final 22nd coat had no scratches and was only showing a dull sheen surface with normal irregularities caused by the different Tru-Oil layers. I found that it wasn’t necessary to use a harsher compound then the gentle MeGuairs ScratchX polish. That stuff is a very mild compound which polishes and leaves a glossy and clear-as- glass- finish which all evened out with my flannel buffing rag. The Meguiar’s actually leaves a nicer clear gloss finish then does the Johnson’s past wax. But, a final sealant like Johnson’s Wax or carnauba is necessary. I would try carnauba next time.
