A little help refinishing grips

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I have refinished a few wood items but I am really quite inexperienced and so would appreciate any advice on a small project.

I have a Belgian Browning Challenger that was made in 1969. With the exception of two tiny scratches, the bluing is like new. The one-piece walnut (?) grips have some scrapes visible in the images below. The finish is the original gloss c. 1969 and it appears that it’s over a walnut stain. I am not sure if the varnish is polyurethane or more traditional.

Ideally, I would like to strip the clear coat, sand out some minor dings, and re-stain and redcoat it, perhaps in matte finish. ( I am prepared to dodge brickbats hurled at me for even suggesting removing the original finish but this is far from a priceless antique.)

I would prefer not to sand the finish off since it would dull the checkering so I am looking for suggestions as to a chemical solution. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Images follow. You can see the aforementioned scratches in the bluing just ahead of the slide in the second image.

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Re: A little help refinishing grips

2
Furniture and floor strippers have been around forever and they are sold at hardware, paint, and the Depot/Lowes places. But you'll need LOTS of ventilation, a proper cartridge filter mask and goggles, as well as chemical gloves. The stuff will make your head spin and burn your skin, but it just bubbles the finish off! I did our home-office floor about 18 years ago. Small room, big job, but it needs to be done again (rolling chairs, dogs, cats, kids...). You will need to scrape it, so I'd use plastic scrapers (like the car-door panel removal levers).
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: A little help refinishing grips

13
I'm guessing from the look and the IPA response, you've got a shellac finish. Way easier to deal with than some poly stuff.

If you're not looking to change the color, I'd do the sanding you want to do without stripping, then take down the current finish with denatured alcohol and a toothbrush, then refinish with a coat of shellac thinned 50/50 with denatured alcohol. Apply it first very lightly over the checkering, really just a few drops and spread it around with that same toothbrush. Then, brush a coat over the other areas of the grip. It will dry glossy. Make sure there is enough of a coat that the areas you sanded look about as glossy as the areas you didn't. If not, give them another light coat of thinned shellac. After it's all good and dry, knock the gloss off with the finest grade of steel wool you can conveniently get. Probably 0000. Use that same funky toothbrush (you cleaned the shellac out of it with denatured alcohol because you're not a slob) to get any dust or steel splinters out of the checkering. After steel wool, put a small drop of boiled linseed oil on your fingers and rub it on to the smooth surfaces of the grips and keep ribbing it in until it is essentially dry. Let it dry a day or two more before putting the grips back on the gun.

Robert is your mother's brother.

If you want to change the color with some sort of stain, ask the nice person at the paint store or woodworking shop what to use for stripping shellac from walnut. Your outcome will probably be better using a plain stain or dye and following with the shellac/oil finish above rather than an all-in-one stain/finish, which will be hard to keep from gooping up the checkering.
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Re: A little help refinishing grips

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stripping down far enough to change color is a LOT harder to get right with checkering. way less leeway with partially removed original finish. you can also wind up over-darkening the checkering pretty easily when applying color.

It occurs to me that after you scrub with denatured alcohol, if the old finish melts enough to spread pretty evenly over the sanded areas, you can skip new shellac and go straight to using more BLO for the final finish. again, go very light on the checkering and do more finish on the smooth areas. an all BLO finish over a very little bit of shellac left from the original finish will give you a somewhat darker color than the original. see how the denatured does on the original before deciding which way to proceed
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Re: A little help refinishing grips

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CDFingers wrote:I'd avoid steel wool and use a toothbrush, then a soft cloth. I'd do boiled linseed oil, but if it were my gun, I'd do pine tar first. :mrgreen:

CDFingers
Your position on steel wool is completely reasonable. Might want a stiffer brush than a toothbrush to replace it, but def not metal.

Have you ever done pine tar over checkering? I’d think that would be a recipe for disaster?
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Re: A little help refinishing grips

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Marlene wrote:
CDFingers wrote:I'd avoid steel wool and use a toothbrush, then a soft cloth. I'd do boiled linseed oil, but if it were my gun, I'd do pine tar first. :mrgreen:

CDFingers
Your position on steel wool is completely reasonable. Might want a stiffer brush than a toothbrush to replace it, but def not metal.

Have you ever done pine tar over checkering? I’d think that would be a recipe for disaster?
I'm thinking you'd get the excess off that didn't soak in, to avoid the disaster.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

A little help refinishing grips

20
Bucolic wrote:Thanks. That makes sense, and I will proceed with appropriate caution.


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Okay, maybe I threw caution to the wind...

I started sanding some of the obvious nicks and shallow gouges with 400 grit paper. The finish is *very* thin so I was down to bare walnut very quickly. I tried to see if the shellac would melt and flow with denatured alcohol and it would not. It just dulled. I figured that I had no choice so I sanded the left half of the grip to take off the finish, smoothed it with 800 and 1500 grit. It is righteously smooth now.

Here’s the sanded side:

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And the other side:

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I am going to sand it all down, but I am torn as to how to proceed then. What would an application of boiled linseed oil do? I am not particularly fond of walnut’s natural color but I am more worried about putting, say, a cherry stain on it, for reasons Marlene mentioned.

Advice?
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Re: A little help refinishing grips

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BLO requires multiple coats to get a glossy finish. Once a day for a week, once a week for a month, then once a year. It does, however, provide a pretty non slip and silky feel to the wood. Like an old milsurp stock.

Another great finish is Pure Tung Oil. It is used on fine hunting rifles. Thin by half with mineral spirits and put three coats on, three days apart.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: A little help refinishing grips

25
Bucolic wrote:Thanks! Can’t tell what groove your are referring too. It’s a one-piece grip that wraps around the back.

I finished sanding the right side and smoothed all of the non-checkered surfaces with 2500 grit dry paper. It’s one smooth operator.


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"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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