HW/Weihrauch Refinishing beech stocks...

Not worth it. I tried two and they came out terrible. JMHO, Don

I looked into this several months ago. Bear-of-grayling has successfully refinished a few, but apparently it isn't easy and the results are often mediocre. I decided to get a walnut stock instead.

Beech is tough, but you can get some color and contrast with some effort. I haven't done a HW stock, but have refreshed a beat to death Feinwerkbau 300S rifle. I have pics somewhere....

I've refinished several powder burners over the years and quite a few old tools for fun. The only thing beach I have refinished is a hand plane and I can't find the pics, but it came out nice for my limited skills. I'm always messin around with something,,....there is usually some wood involved somewhere. The finish I usually use is part refined boiled linseed oil and part true oil but it is not 50/50/ I'd have to find my recipe. Here is a maple plane I refinished around 10 years or so ago...

I gave this HW97K a try with a walnut stain after stripping it down and applying a few coats of Tru-Oil. It looks ok from a distance, but up close, it's still the same bland beechwood. It's a small improvement over the factory finish, which looked like sick baby poo.

I did one a while ago. Not an easy task. Beech will get very blotchy if you’re not careful. Scroll to the end of this overview to see the process outline.

Nitrocrushr said:

I did one a while ago. Not an easy task. Beech will get very blotchy if you’re not careful. Scroll to the end of this overview to see the process outline.

Jesse's Pro-Sport .177 Beech - Project Overview - Airguns & Guns Forum

Jesse's Pro-Sport .177 Beech - Project Overview, Air guns, Airgun Forum

www.gatewaytoairguns.org

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Nice work, as good as it can get me thinks

bustachip said:

Thanks, it looks better than factory to me.

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Something I've milled around a lot looking stuff over and never came to a conclusion ..

Just when the time comes get what you feels going to look or be best then jume right in and hang on ..lol

Here's an HW85 that I did recently. I purchased this gun in a lot of two HW85s. This one had a damaged stock and a broken cocking shoe. This in NOT an example of my best work. This was a very rushed, 3 - day job. The stain that I used is a homebrew of various leather dies and pigments. The finish is a half dozen or so hand rubbed coats of Tru OIl ( my finish of choice ). While this is certainly no showpiece, it's considerably better than the way it was when I received it. The stock was dented, scratched and gouged in several places. The cocking shoe had broken and when it did the cocking arm blew right through the bottom of the forend, just behind the cocking slot. Had I spent more time on this job, It would've certainly tuned out better, but I'm quite pleased with it as is. Of interest is the grain pattern on the right side of the butt. It almost looks as though two pieces of wood were joined together in order to make the blank, but this is not the case. It's just the way the grain runs. Strangely however, this was not apparent before stripping the original finish.

bustachip said:

Anybody had any luck with stripping and refinishing HW beech stocks, if so show your results and explain what you did. Or is this even worth the effort?
I'm contemplating doing this to my 97K stock, complete strip, sanding, walnut type stain and then finish with some kind of oil. What do you guys think?
Just looking for options other than buying a new stock for now.

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Not worth the effort, and will absolutely look worse.

just paint it

Hydro dip it

I have done a few and as mentioned it can be a pain. One thing that has worked for me is once getting the old color off and still while ruff sanded start staining it. Be careful at end grain areas, they soak up the stain and get dark quickly.

After each sanding grit I stain again.

The only thing that I have found that will give an even finish is spray stain that is mixed with the clear coat. Minwax is one that has given great results.

aaroncr said:

I've refinished several powder burners over the years and quite a few old tools for fun. The only thing beach I have refinished is a hand plane and I can't find the pics, but it came out nice for my limited skills. I'm always messin around with something,,....there is usually some wood involved somewhere. The finish I usually use is part refined boiled linseed oil and part true oil but it is not 50/50/ I'd have to find my recipe. Here is a maple plane I refinished around 10 years or so ago...

View attachment 486968View attachment 486969

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Did one or two of those, Those old handplanes are fantastic.

bustachip said:

Anybody had any luck with stripping and refinishing HW beech stocks, if so show your results and explain what you did. Or is this even worth the effort?
I'm contemplating doing this to my 97K stock, complete strip, sanding, walnut type stain and then finish with some kind of oil. What do you guys think?
Just looking for options other than buying a new stock for now.

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I did a Fwb 124d about 40+ years ago, It took a couple of tries. It took a lot of fine sanding, 600 grit or finer sandpaper and steel wool. I think I ended up when I thought it smoothe enough, spraying with some of my wife's spray starch she uses for clothes, let dry, then fine steel wool, a few treatments like that, to get all the fuzz gone. Then a thinned oil base stain, let dry and then I cannot remember, eigther BLO or diluted Tru Oil. All these years later it looks good.