Original Finish

[Dougger]

What was the original finish on the 1936 Model 81 stocks? I just bought one in 35 Remington and the finish on the stocks is a mess. Dents, scratches and scrapes but the bluing is excellent. Have any of you refinished stocks for the Model 81? How did you do it?

[Hibby83]

Congrats on finding an 81 in 35 Remington, I saw that you were looking, and you sure made it happen in short order. Sounds like a cool gun, real neat with it being a first year Model 81!

_Disclaimer- refinishing wood and or blue will make your rifle less original and value go down. Unfortunately, many collectible/valuable rifles have been compromised by uninformed gun enthusiasts.
_My 2 cents- it's your rifle to do with what you want and be happy with, BE SMART. Not every rifle is collector grade, but there isn't many of these 8's & 81's out there in comparison to Winchesters.

I've had good luck with tung oil when I was touching up finish or completely restoring stock sets. Birchwood Casey TRU-OIL isn't a bad option, but it leaves more of a gloss/sheen than to be desired "to me," it's easy to knock that gloss down though. Boiled Linseed Oil and LinSpeed oil are popular options.

As far as how to, do your homework- There's good tutorials online in forums and especially how to videos on youtube.
Sometimes LESS is more when trying to revive a stock set. A 100% beautiful stock set on an 80% blue condition rifle, won't look right. Depending on the circumstance, leaving some of the bumps and scratches is nice to do.

Hope that helped.

P.S- You can't put wood back on once it's gone... Keep the shape and edges, wood fit is to be at least flush or proud of the metal!

[Dougger]

The metal on the firearm is pretty good but the buttstock and forearm are beat up. In addition, someone stuck one of those cheap little compasses in the buttstock. I paid $650.00 for the firearm and do not anticipate re-selling it. I will hand it down.

[Dougger]

Here are photos of the stock.

35 REmington 1.jpg (109.51 KiB) Viewed 7787 times

[Dougger]

Here are a couple more.

[Hibby83]

Nice looking rifle! I'd wager that's a Marbles compass.

Look at pictures of the different rifles in the photos section and the 8 or 81 sub forum, there's also lots of nice examples that can be seen in internet searches to help you see what original finish looks like.

My opinion- you did quite well on the purchase. Enjoy your rifle however you choose. It appears that it won't need much work to get back to how.you want it. I don't believe you'll need to sand at all.

Tip- be sure give your finish enough time to cure between coats. I had good luck rasing dents using a damp/moistened cloth and a clothes iron. Spend the time with research and making it nice.

[Dougger]

If the dents will come out with the moist cloth and the iron, I will certainly consider just touching up the bad parts of the stock. Marbles compass? I thought it was just cheap compass. I will respect it much more now. How does the compass affect its value?

[Hibby83]

I'm not familiar on the old compass, can't talk with certainty there. Perhaps it's Polychoke or even Pachmayr that made it. Compass in the stock is a takeaway on originality. It looks like it was done nice though and it's part of the guns history.

Happy to hear that you're considering a more subtle approach! Clothes iron and damp cloth works good. Big take away, take your time. Start slow and see how the wood acts.

Personal example raising dents.

[1913Model8]

Absolutely some of those will come out with steam and some elbow grease. Check out my website here of the pictures I took when I refinished my Model 8 a few years ago now. I followed the Larry Potterfield way of doing a sanded in finish and I could not be happier with the process. I was able to remove the old gun oil out of the stock and remove any stains on other stocks I have done with a bleach mix and some heat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvE_Wd ... yz&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET2scbQ ... z&index=19
http://model-8-service-tool.square.site/

[1913Model8]

What was the original finish on the 1936 Model 81 stocks? I just bought one in 35 Remington and the finish on the stocks is a mess. Dents, scratches and scrapes but the bluing is excellent. Have any of you refinished stocks for the Model 81? How did you do it?

The stocks back then might have been dunked in a tank like some of the old videos online show of doing large production firearm manufacturing. Not an expert on that tho. Larry Potterfield has amazing videos as I provided a link on the last post. I recommend following it! My Old Model 8 at some point was lacquered over and it was ok but just not wonderful. Plus the dents and a nick here or there. I was able to remove every dent and nick. Took a good week from what a remember. Anyway extremely fun and gave me the confidence to refinish any piece of furniture! Look again at my site from the previous post and see some of my images of my progress.
Good luck

[1913Model8]

As long as I am looking at this and thinking about it again here are more links I used a reference for refinishing stocks.
I do remember I spent a lot of time researching and really thinking about what and how I wanted to do this without screwing it up.
I did do it a little different than Larry Potterfield but its still basically the sameway just different products.
I used strickly Minwax products.

You need rubber gloves, lots of paper towel and news paper, steel wool, Lots of 180-1000 grit sandpaper, sealer or pre stain, Minwax antique oil, and Wax.

https://www.woodmagazine.com/finishing/ ... s-look-hot

https://www.woodsmith.com/article/versa ... ating-oil/

https://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/ji ... les-stock/