Refinishing stocks with light dings and scratches

[deerflyguy]

I've refinished stocks with exceptionally scratched and dinged features by taking off the old finish down to the white wood and applying many coats of finish in between rubdowns and have had great success doing so, but I'm interested in knowing if any of our readers have had experience in refinishing the lazy man's way that does not include the intense labor and time that doing it the "right" way entails?

For a specific example, does anyone have experience in bringing back the finish on a brown stained poplar stock from an Air Arms rifle? Is there any "magic" finish application that would do just enough to restore the original finish appearance, without asking too much of the product or the skill of the applicator?

 

[mochajoe]

I’ve done a lot of wood refinishing during my life but never a gun stock. It should be no different then any other wood staining project. Im going to follow your ? because not to long after I bought my Benjamin Marauder with a wood stock the finish started to wear off on the hand grip and wear my finger rubs near the trigger .

 

[FrankinFairfield]

Bump, bruises can normally be refreshed and the wood brought back to normal with a very hot water soaked towel.

This will make the wood swell.

Then apply several coats of hand-rubbed BLO using only your fingers and doing it til it feels very warm…

Keep a specially oil-soaked rag just for that purpose.

Remember to keep the BLO rag in a air tight zip-lock bag between uses.

You should also keep a separate rag soaked in silicone oil for the metal parts…

 

[Loren]

A clothes iron with with a damp towel can do wonders for fixing dents in wood. Some Old English and address scratches. Some Miniwax wood wax on top. All low skill 

 

[MikeVV]

If you don't need to have a wood finish, "vinyl" wraps are pretty tough. Will take a lot of abuse without damage. I've done two so far, the material seems to be able to withstand a bit of a beating with no adverse surface damage.

Mike