27 Photos of Gun Stock Refinishing

The original finish clearly didn’t include the areas covered by the rifle’s frame; if it had, oil never could have soaked into the wood so readily. There’s a lot of it in this wood, which makes it look bad AND softens the wood. No bueno.

After stripping, we see that oil intrusion is the main thing uglying up this stock. There’s actually some nice figure to this wood.

I set out to clean the oil from the wood, and I can tell you this: Do not use Trewax Wood Cleaner! It is apparently meant for use on finished wood (the package didn’t say), and it’s actually pretty oily itself.

I also tried acrylic enamel reducer, which got rid of the Trewax residue and that was it. Acetone got rid of surface oil, but didn’t pull out the deep stuff.

I ultimately used strong concentrated liquid dish soap and a toothbrush at the kitchen sink. Scrub, rinse, repeat — then I used a clean toothbrush to scrub while rinsing to get rid of soap residue, followed by multiple rinses. I rinsed twice more after all traces of soap suds were gone, then allowed it to air dry.

Dent Removal

As you can see, I didn’t get rid of all the wood staining, but that’s okay. I wanted to retain some of this old gun’s character and all it’s been through.

I removed dents from the wood using a clothes iron. I ain’t kidding! Simply lay a damp washcloth over a dent and apply a hot iron to the cloth. The steaming action will cause the wood fibers to swell and push the dent back out. Sometimes it completely removes dents, others are only minimized, but it always helps, and saves a bunch of sanding.

Keep the cloth damp, and take care not to allow the point or edge of the iron to add dents to the wood.

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Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.