I just a bought a new Wasr  with the solid wood furniture, not laminated.  I would like to refinish it and have it look like my Tung oiled SKS Yugo, but I have no idea what the Wasr wood will look like.

Please post pics of the finish jobs you guys have done.

Well, just using Kiwi Cordovan wax shoe polish will do this:



Same on a PAP pistol:



- OS

I did a WASR solid wood stock in Formby's Tung Oil Finish about 8 or 10 years ago.  Came out really nice - very light in color.  Let me see if I can dig up a picture when I get home tonight.

ETA:  Found one on photobucket.

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The Tung oil looks good but if you did the several years ago this if upgraded furniture, correct?  I thought until recently all wasrs came with laminate furniture.

Anyone know what type of wood the new hardwood is?

Generally acknowledged to be beech, about the same density as the birch that the US generally uses for cheap hardwood versions.

Here's my other WASR, where I also used the Formby's Tung Oil finish. It was "low gloss" version, which suggests they make it in "high gloss" also I guess. Note that this is far from doing it with actual pure tung oil itself, which can take months.



At any rate, both this and the shoe polish treatment in above post were mainly just efforts to seal from moisture, more than perfect aesthetic appeal -- they are after all, "just" AKs. ;) I did treat them inside and out, 5 or 6 coats each method, even put the Kiwi/Formbys into cleaning rod hole with patches on cleaning rod.

- OS

I am not looking for a shinny AK..  How is the shoe polish holding up, how did you apply it?  Is it possible to apply shoe polish to get the color and then coat with Tung oil for protection?  I may end up buying some stain and then coating with Tung oil.

Shoe polish has done quite well, but gun has not gotten particular wet either. It does however, bead up nicely when you put water on it. I just rubbed it on thickly with rag, let haze over for about 30 minutes, then buff with white sock rag. Repeat 4 or 5 times.

I imagine you could put some kind of clear coat over top of it, but tung oil itself needs to soak into grain, which the wax seals, so that's probably not a go. Probably some kind of matte polycoat would work.  Again, a real finish using pure tung oil can take a year to do right, no kidding.

I just left it as is, can always just hit it up with more if it ever needs it I guess. It was just simple and quick, thought the reddish finish would be nice so used the cordovan --  had read that it's an old time way of doing a finish, although most of the old time waxes had carnuba in them and that's still recommended as best and the Kiwi doesn't have that in it.

- OS

Here's a couple I've done. And a link to my site with the details on how: http://seanrose.com/guns/refinishingtheak47.php