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Zinsser Bulls-Eye Amber Shellac is a dead-on match. I'm refinishing the wood in my Egyptian kits currently and I'm very pleased with three coats of the amber shellac.
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
cool. so it gives the slightly darker color vs the lighter color that I see on some of the Maadi upper handgaurds right?
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Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
cool. so it gives the slightly darker color vs the lighter color that I see on some of the Maadi upper handgaurds right? That's going to be determined by the upper handguard's color. On two of my kits the upper is naturally darker wood, but on my third kit the wood is the same color as the lower. So if I wanted to make the upper darker on that one I would have to stain it first. |
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Good info to know. What methods have you used to work over the wood to get rid of the dings, gouges and scrapes? I will try to post more pics of the wood to show my concern areas.
Break it down to the elementary school style if you can. This the first wood stock firearm I have owned that has required restoration of the wood furniture. If you have detailed links that would help too. I'm going all out on the metal components with the parkerizing I will be doing + paint. So I want the wood to look as nice as possible, yet not replace it with new wood in order to keep as much of the original kit together as possible. Even though I want to keep the original color and appearance properties of the current finish on the wood, I don't mind embellishing it a little and giving it more gloss/shine/depth then what the current coat has. |
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Anything you do is more than likely still going to show through the finish. Especially on such a transparent finish like shellac. In the past I've used epoxy to fill in large dents and gouges. You basically mix up some epoxy and glob it into the gouge. Then you place a piece of masking tape over it to flatten it out. When it's dry you remove the tape, file down the excess (if needed), and then begin your sanding starting at 60 grit. This will a least give the handguard a smooth feel even though it may not completely hide it.
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
How long did you allow each coat of shillac to dry?
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Shellac usually only needs about 30mins to dry. Its humidity dependent though. I prefer to use shellac for all my woodworking projects. IDK why I never thought to use it on a gun stock. Its be weakness is water though. There was way to mitigate that with topcoats of lacquer or simply coating it with paste wax often.
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For the metal butt plate and rear sight, what are those parts coated with? It looks like the buttstock plate is blued maybe? Either that or the paint is worn off of it. The front sight almost looks blued too. When I sandblast all the metal parts, I want to ensure I re-coat them correctly.
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Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
For the metal butt plate and rear sight, what are those parts coated with? It looks like the buttstock plate is blued maybe? Either that or the paint is worn off of it. The front sight almost looks blued too. When I sandblast all the metal parts, I want to ensure I re-coat them correctly. Everything except the rear sight and magazine catch were painted. The rear sight and catch were blued and then installed after the rifle was painted. |
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Is there anything on an AK other than the bolt assembly that parkerizing solution WILL NOT parkerize? (i.e. aluminum, steel, titianium)
As you suggested I'm going to leave that rear sight leaf alone with no parkerizing regardless to keep it close to factory. Probably blue that. Disassembled the AK last night. Took all of the wood off and cleaned degreased all of the other pieces as much as possible by hand. Going to put these parts through a hot degreasing solution piror to the sand blasting to get all the grease and particle out of the nooks and crannys I can't get to. |
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Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Is there anything on an AK other than the bolt assembly that parkerizing solution WILL NOT parkerize? (i.e. aluminum, steel, titianium) No, and you CAN parkerize the bolt assembly. Just disassemble it first. |
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Originally Posted By AEnemaBay:
Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Is there anything on an AK other than the bolt assembly that parkerizing solution WILL NOT parkerize? (i.e. aluminum, steel, titianium) No, and you CAN parkerize the bolt assembly. Just disassemble it first. Maybe its the piston I'm thinking about? So the bolt carrier and bolt will take parkerizing? What about the butt plate from the stock? That part looks blued or anodized. Will it park? Also what about the slight swivel ring on from the buttstock? Have you parkerized those? Maybe what I should ask is, what parts won't parkerize on an AK ? |
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Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Originally Posted By AEnemaBay:
Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Is there anything on an AK other than the bolt assembly that parkerizing solution WILL NOT parkerize? (i.e. aluminum, steel, titianium) No, and you CAN parkerize the bolt assembly. Just disassemble it first. Maybe its the piston I'm thinking about? So the bolt carrier and bolt will take parkerizing? What about the butt plate from the stock? That part looks blued or anodized. Will it park? Also what about the slight swivel ring on from the buttstock? Have you parkerized those? Maybe what I should ask is, what parts won't parkerize on an AK ? If it's carbon steel and has a rough finish it will parkerize. The gas piston will not since it's chrome plated. There isn't any aluminum on a combloc AKM. |
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Bought the Zinsser Bulls-Eye Amber Shellac you suggested. I chose to go the acetone route to get the old finish off. Tonight the wood furniture is soaking in an acetone bath. Got some wood filler pens. They came in a kit of like 5 shades of wood color. They look like thick crayons and fill in the gouges this stock has. They are all throughout the stock in the dark spots and brown spots, so thought that might be the a good way to fill in the gouges.
Made a mesh basket to dip all the small receiver parts and retaining pins into for the parkerizing process. I bought a bunch of cheap stainless steel mud pans from harbor freight which my friend is welding together to make a long enough tub for the ak metal assembly and future projects. Going to find a small thing of lacquer to fill in the arabic engravings with so when I parkerize and paint it, I can scrape the finish off easy out of the recesses of the engraving and still stow the arabic numbers the way the rifle originally looked. Read some where the laquer is good for covering surfaces you dont want the parkerizing solution to coat. Still waiting for the parkerizing and degreasing solution to show up. That order should come with the rubber plugs they suggest to protect the chrome barrel lining from the degreasing solutions which will strip and pit the chrome really bad from what I read in the description. Using a big cheap electric griddle as the heat source. Have candy thermometers to ensure we keep the tubs burning at the right temps throughout. The parkerizing probably wont happen until next weekend when my friend gets back in and can weld the mud pans together and let me borrow his sand blaster. Going to sandblast and reblue the rear sight leaf. I picked up some white nail polish and plan to paint the arabic sight numbers in with fine brush the wipe off excess with nail polish remover on paper shop towel. All I have sitting around here and also all I could find out in town right now is the crappy birchwood casey bluing which I used on an old shot gun recently and wasnt overly impressed with the number of coats it took to make it close to black. However, with it just being one small piece, even having to put many coats on wont require a lot of energy, |
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Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Still waiting for the parkerizing and degreasing solution to show up. That order should come with the rubber plugs they suggest to protect the chrome barrel lining from the degreasing solutions which will strip and pit the chrome really bad from what I read in the description. What degreasing solution are you going to be using? The only thing that I know of right off the bat that will strip and pit chrome is hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid). If that's the main ingredient you'll have to be careful because if it will pit chrome it will pit steel faster. Make sure you don't plug the bores when you actually parkerize. |
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Originally Posted By AEnemaBay:
Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Still waiting for the parkerizing and degreasing solution to show up. That order should come with the rubber plugs they suggest to protect the chrome barrel lining from the degreasing solutions which will strip and pit the chrome really bad from what I read in the description. What degreasing solution are you going to be using? The only thing that I know of right off the bat that will strip and pit chrome is hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid). If that's the main ingredient you'll have to be careful because if it will pit chrome it will pit steel faster. Make sure you don't plug the bores when you actually parkerize. http://www.shootersolutions.com/4cmet.html Using this stuff. To make sure all the debris and stuff built up in all the nooks and crannys gets desolved and removed prior to the parkerizing process. Parkerizing: If there is sand, or dust residue, even hidden inside the metal, it will "froth" or dissolve it out, and if not brushed off/out of the metal, it will "cottage cheese" out of it in a Parkerizing Solution (Since the sand will be disolved). If there is enough volume of it in solution, it will need to be filtered out of the "Park" solution - hot or cold. What is converts is 100% of even the microscopic rust and black oxide that can only be viewed by microscope into a converted, conductive coating, which is either clear, or containing a white powder that is easily brushed off.
On the quart volume specific page link.. it is strongly recommended you have or get Silicone Bore Plugs, because this will strip chrome out of barrels fast ("cleaning") AND it will pit the insides 10 times worse (even cold) as hot Parkerizing will. It's pH is as low as Parkerizing Concentrate (Of course that is because it IS a concentrate, which is why the investment amount is where it is.)
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Put 4 coats of shellac on the furniture since my last post. The bleach solution and dishwasher really brought the wood down to its true color. However, since I more intended on a darker shade of finish like it came with, I should have only put the wood through the acetone and not the bleach especially. The contrast on the wood and how clear the pattern is, would be the highpoints of how it turned out though. It looks great and similar to many other egyptian AKMs I have seen, but not quite as dark as the wood how it came as a kit. If this furniture becomes scrapped up from using the rifle, I will remember that when refinishing the wood in the future.
I took some fine picks and scraped out the circle K egyptian proof mark on the lower handguard that got smoothed out from the stripping process. So that made it through the process quite well. For now the wood and finish looks beutiful even though it is not the darker shade I had in my mind and I will keep it like this for a while. I will post some pics later. Going with a less agressive degreaser for the parkerizing process. Just dont want to risk hurting the chrome barrel. |
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Looks good.
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Originally Posted By AEnemaBay:
Looks good. I remember on one of the posts here someone said something about shellac being susceptible to water damage or water being something that can hurt the finish over prolonged exposure maybe. Is there any product you might suggest to go over the shellac with for added protection? Or only leave it as is? |
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Originally Posted By MustangSteveGT:
Originally Posted By AEnemaBay:
Looks good. I remember on one of the posts here someone said something about shellac being susceptible to water damage or water being something that can hurt the finish over prolonged exposure maybe. Is there any product you might suggest to go over the shellac with for added protection? Or only leave it as is? I use Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil as a clear coat on my stocks when I know they're going to be exposed to the elements for long periods of time. Rub it in with a rag, let it fully dry (a few hours), and then buff with either steel wool or a rag. Repeat until you get your desired shine. |
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"Nothing says 'come to my tree stand for a good cornholing' more than a Browning Buckmark sticker on your oversized truck." - dport
"Tactical" is a mindset, not an equipment list. |
Thanks for info. I'll be looking for some of that next time I'm out by my gun store.
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if you want a little darker finish, you need to put some dark brown dye in the shellac. fiebings works well. if you are near the 951, I can give you a little bit.
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