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Does the red mag.stain look brown out of the can?I tried this today and my stock came out brown instead of redish.I bought a beater stock to practice on so no big deal,but I want to get this right before I move on to the "good wood"
ETA: maybe I didn't put the betadine on heavy enough?After that step my stock was more yellow than orange. |
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use a small container like an empty (clean) butter tub or something similar. pour in some of the stain, then add mineral spirits. I personally cut it down about 2 parts mineral spirits to one part stain, but experiment and see what you like.
This allows you to have a lot more control over the amount of stain actually going into the wood--the mineral spirits will just evaporate away. consequently, the level of darkness to the stain and the wood can be controlled much more easily. |
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What the heck are you guys using to "brighten" the wood back to the normal color. I have tried everything and I cannot get the dark areas (almost black) to lighten up. I used the Citristrip stripper and that worked well, then I soaked them in a bleach water solution for 3hrs and they were still dark. Then I sanded one stock to the point that the edges will be smaller than the buttplate. This buttstock is now my practice stock. I have even tried the oxyclean product with no luck. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks |
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Vugger, maybe your bleach water concentration isn't strong enough.
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Wow Tapeo very nice.
I need to hurry up and finish this semester so I can go home and finish my Rommy kit. |
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Here is my Romy, I used Rit dye and a satin clear sparr varnish on it. http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a295/fastbrianman/692d6fb7.jpg
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Longhorn what color stain did you use? I like that dark color.
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how do you like that krink brake? I'm really considering sending a wasr or romy kit to Christ at AKUSA, chopping the barrel to SBR then perm attach a krink brake. Think that would be a sweet set-up. -mark |
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Thanks! I used Minwax Walnut. If memory serves, I put like 10 coats of stain down because the wood was not staining evenly. All that orange crud came off real well and was not deep into the wood while I was stripping it down with sandpaper. However, the wood itself had a big slice of harder wood, or ring wood for lack of a better term, which would not absorb the stain like the softer, or pulp wood was doing. So, I stained it over and over, applying extra stain to that specific area, until I had it all relatively even. I was totally shocked at how well it ended up since it looked like a Home Depot 2x4 dipped in wax when I started. Good luck on yours... |
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Woohoo! I just purchased a Romy kit myself and hope to apply some of my knowledge gained here for refinishing the wood.
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Rock on dude!! |
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Thanks. Of course, I'll consider myself lucky to get the wood looking even half as good as tapeo1's or longhorn789's. Also, would it be a sin to stain the wood red? Over the past couple years I've seen a rare few AK's with deep red wood furniture, and I thought it looked pretty good. |
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It's your world brother. No sin to dig what you dig. Minwax makes a Cherry stain that would probably work pretty well. |
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Why Bleach the wood? Can you guys explain what it does and how to do it? thanks
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Wingman,
Is that the Hi Gloss or Low Gloss Formbys? If Low Gloss, how many coats? Thanks. |
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Ooooohhhhh I really like the first one. So the first one pictured has the Chestnut Ridge military stock stain? I think I'll use that for mine. |
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That is correct. I figured it really closely matched the original Romanian color without having that filthy, greasy, shellacky, way too dark look to it.
It looks better in person than in that pic too. I notice in the pic you can't see much grain but in "real life" it looks like those Romanian rifles in the museum pictures. Kinda sorta............. |
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Tomovich, where in MT do you live? My mother and step father are in Stevensville.
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Hey tapeo1!
I live between Livingston and Bozeman on the Bozeman pass where the wind blows all the time and the winters last until June. Your parents now, they live in the Montana "banana belt". Hey........check the bayonet matching thread. I remember your nickname.......you have a bayonet I could use! |
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That's a beautiful area... although it's been about 7 years since I've been out towards the Bozeman/Livingston area. Last time I went through there, I was on my way to a wedding in Red Lodge. Are you a MSU graduate? I lived in Missoula and Stevensville for 3 years while I went to UM. Go Griz! |
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Small world, huh? I didn't graduate from MSU..........I moved out here about 12 years ago from Ill/Wisc area. I had to escape and as you know........this is the last best place!
P.S. Did you ignore the bayonet comment?? |
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Tomovich, I just sent you an IM regarding the bayonet. |
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That does look good. I think I'm going to rub out the varnish on mine and leave it matte.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you. Just what I've been looking for. Oh yeah baby! Job well done. |
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You guys have some great protruding stiff wood!! I love your wood!! And it's free of bacteria! I would love for you to get your hands on my wood.
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Thanks for the compliments everyone.
One note: The final coat was applied extra-thin and left to dry. I didn't rub it down with the finishing pad at all. Note on photography: Turn off the flash. Avoid using incandescent lighting. Flourescent or sunlight seems to work good for me, even with my 2.0MP Kodak. |
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Lakeguy, How in the world did you get a Yugo ak buttstock on a regular AKM? I think it is weird that the stocksets look like the regular milled stocksets with the screw to hold them in place up through the butt instead of having that little piece of wood at the end to stick in the reciever to screw into... Anyways just curious. Nice looking AK.
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Randall,
What is the finishing pad that you used after applying the stain, just a regular rag? I have some of the Bombay Mahogany Polyshade and would like to try this with one of my stock sets. |
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It was just a steel-wool'ish rectangle in the paint/stain aisle at Ace Hardware labeled "Finishing Pad". Unfortunately I don't have the packaging, so I can't give any stock numbers or anything like that. You could probably get the same roughing-up effect by using some fine steel-wool. After most of the clear poly was removed, I'd dust the piece off and put on another layer. The color would continue to darken, but the finish remained a satin rather than a thick glaze. It was something akin to this 3M product. |
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I just started refinishing my Romy stock set using the same color as Randall. However, I went with the satin finish as opposed to the glossy. So far I've got 3 coats on it and it's beginning to look real good. I'm just applying it with a rag, making sure it's evenly distributed. Then I let it dry, hit it with some 0000 steel wool and throw another coat on. I figure after 5 or 6 coats it ought to look fantastic.
I'll post updates with pics as I can. |
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sorry bout that, I wasnt checking this thread too often. All I did was shave down the front of the stock to fit in the receiver. I also milled away the wood on the stock with a spiral saw in order for the screw tab to slide in. Eta: the only reason I did it was because I was bored |
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I'm in the process of doing mine right now. I used a rosewood stain,and am finishing with tung oil. 0000 steel wool between coats. I could have sanded the bare wood more to make it smoother, but I was a bit lazy. The 4th coat of oil is drying right now, and it looks decent. Not as good up close where you can see the scratches I didn't sand out, but still ok. I'll probably put on another coat and call it good.
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I am not a big fan of the forward verticle grips on the Romy kits. Is there anything that would stop a person from cutting off the vert grip and make it a regular fore stock grip? I think a saw and a sander will be in order when mine gets delivered.
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I have seen others cut the vertical part off and make a nice looking grip out of them. I took one and sawed off the grip and reversed it and dowelled it back on for an underfolder stock.
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Tagged.
There's a lot of great info in this thread and I have a winter project coming up Beautiful work guys! |
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