-
Tikka Hunter Wood Stock Maintenance
After being out hunting with my Tikka Hunter I have noticed some wear and finish variances in the wood stock. What is the recommendation for maintaining the stock? Wax? Hand rubbing with an oil? I like the satin finish of the stock so I do not want to use anything like linseed oil or any other product that will leave a gloss finish.
-
9 Replies
-
Birchwood Casey makes a wood stock Maintenance kit. You will want to use the part of the kit called Satin finish Stock Sheen, it will look like milk with a super fine gritty texture to it. GO SLOW, take your time working small areas with light pressure to achieve the finish you desire.
-
Thanks Elkhamr
-
You betcha, hope it turns out like you want it. I hate glossy wood stocks too, a few I've done lately I stripped all the way down to bare wood, then used tung oil to seal the wood and bring out the natural grain. Then Instead of hand rubbing coats of tru oil or other oils finishes on, I've been using a Matte finish laquer spray. 3 coats of that with super fine steel wool in between coats then stock sheen to finish it and they come out real nice.
-
ElkHamr… How long have you been spraying lacquer over oil? How has this finish held up in use for you? I've been building cabinets and furniture for 30+years and lacquer over oil is not a recommended practice. The instructions on lacquer cans state this. You want a clean wood surface to start with. Then sanding sealer is applied in several coats to fill the pores of the wood, lightly sanding between coats and then apply the lacquer in as many coats as to satisfy yourself. When and if you have trouble with your system you would have to strip the whole stock to start over… you can't patch lacquer. The Tung oil is the hardest oil known to man… very durable. When you notice wear on a tung oil finish you just give the stock another coat… no stripping ;-).
Larry
-
Sask/Ab… I would find out what type of finish Tikka uses on their stocks before I did anything to it. This will tell you what you need to do/use on
it.Larry
-
Larry, Thanks for the info and reply and your point of having to redo an entire stock is duely noted. I was just experimenting when I stripped and finished the first Remington BDL that had the heavy shiny laquer coat. The tung oil finish as you know dries hard as a brick, so I thought a satin laquer finish might work good. So far it has held up, and no bubbles or chips have shown up yet. Also I've done 4-5 more Rem. BDLs without issues, and have fixed the bubbling chipping issues the CDLs are notorious for on the forend tip and grip caps.
-
ElkHamr… May be the Tung oil drying so hard has something to do with it. Glad for your success with the stocks.
Larry
-
Hello Larry, I think I recall letting it sit for 3-4 days to dry before doing anything else to it, when I picked it up and felt the surface, it was somewhat gritty feeling from dust in the air. When I started to use the scotch brite and steel wool it seemed like the wood was alot harder and hardly made any dust but smoothed out real nice. I cleaned it with some alcohol on a rag and sprayed it, using steel wool in between coats. The laquer I got is from Midway, and I'm not recalling the name off the top of my head, but will post the name if I still have the can.
-
Finally found the manual for my Tikka and it says to use a quality stock oil for oil finished rifles (Hunter) and a lacquer finish for lacquer coated stocks (Forest model?). I did notice that the stock appearance actually improved over the past week so I suspect that the discolouration was due to moisture. Still planning to add a coat or two of oil just to try and protect the wood. Headed to the gun store this weekend so I will see what I can find.
Log in to reply.