Used furniture rejuvination

[EdwardE]

This morning I went to a local gun show to further my hunt for some value priced wood for the 870. Tucked away in a vendor's booth was an 870 stock. It may have come from a police department looking at the tag screwed to the stock "RHPD #84". There is a city just north of me called Rock Hill; maybe it came from there; can't tell for sure. No cracks or damage other than a well-worn finish (and two small screw holes from the tag). Sold for $20.00.
The grain looks nice and I plan to refinish this. Hopefully will get a good color match to the police foregrip I bought a few weeks ago (another $20.00 piece).

The stock:


This is the foregrip I refinished. I used acetone and a terry cloth to strip and clean the old finish and grime off then sanded down to finish with 2000 grit. Followed this with several coats of "Dr. Duck's Axe Wax", a wood conditioning oil.

[EdwardE]

The stock cleaned up nicely. The natural color of the walnut is very different from the forearm so, it looks like I'll have to do some staining (which means re-working the forearm, too) to get them similar hues. There's a little bit of figure in the grain; no show-stopper, though.

[Synchronizor]

Got to love good hardwood. Did your stock come with all the hardware, or is it just the wood?

The natural color of the walnut is very different from the forearm so, it looks like I'll have to do some staining (which means re-working the forearm, too) to get them similar hues

Are you comparing the stock to the fore-end in it's current finished state, or to the fore-end before it was oiled? Wood can look very different between finishing stages, so the stock and fore-end may be better matched than you think. To help decide if you really need to get into fiddling with stains, you could sand a spot inside the fore-end to the same state as the the stock, and use that to compare the two.

There's a little bit of figure in the grain; no show-stopper, though.

Police walnut stocks are meant to be tough and functional first. A good, straight grain structure makes for the strongest and toughest wood - if the grain is oriented properly relative to how it is loaded. It's fairly easy to split wood along the grain, but extremely difficult to do so across the grain; something I learned very well spending the bulk of my tweens and teens in a wood stove-heated home.

This makes wood weak against bending perpendicular to the grain and shear forces parallel to the grain, but very resistant to everything else. A gun stock (on a properly engineered gun) only experiences bending about and shearing across the lateral and vertical axes. The stock isn't wide or tall enough to allow for much of a bending moment around the longitudinal axis, and with a proper bearing surface on the back of the receiver, the only axial load in the longitudinal axis is evenly-distributed compression, not shearing.

So, aligning the grain longitudinally plays perfectly to the strengths of quality straight-grained hardwood, making for a wonderfully durable stock. My old Police walnut stock has the grain perfectly oriented, parallel with the stock bolt and perpendicular to the bearing plate on the back of the receiver (the grain on yours isn't quite as optimal, but it's pretty close).

As an engineer, I find this to be the most attractive figure out there. Crotch, quilted, or burl figures may be showy and visually striking, and I love seeing beautifully-figured grain in decorative roles, but that fancy stuff will never beat the strength and toughness of a good straight-grained shotgun stock.

[EdwardE]

No hardware came with the stock. I'm not yet sure what recoil pad I'll install.
The color differences between the two pieces was fairly wide. The forend was on the brown/yellow side and the stock was more brown/purple. I did some staining work last night and got them both to a similar hue. Both pieces should be ready to start finishing tomorrow.



It's supposed to get into the upper 60's here with low humidity over the next few days so I'm planning on completing the finish application while the warmer temps hold out. I decided against an oil finish and will be using a satin poly.

[Short Bus]

Looks good I like the PD plate and IMO you should use it also.

[Zebra62]

Great looking furniture, EdwardE. I agree with ShortBus on the ID tag. Buff it with the 2000 grit, clearcoat and a couple of shiny new screws should make it stand out.

[EdwardE]

Thanks for the compliments. I'm going to have to take a pass on reinstalling the brass plate. Anyway, the finish application is done. It needs to sit for a couple of more days to get some more curing time before it gets installed. Still need to find a recoil pad.
The finish is Helmsman Spar Urethane (aerosol) in a satin finish. Each piece received three coats, flat sanded, then 2 final coats. I was not out to get a glass-smooth finish so, some of the grain is still visible.

Finished.

[Short Bus]

Looks good