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best product/solution for removing wood stain from rifle stock

11K views 17 replies 9 participants last post by  sck 
#1 ·
Have a rifle stock that I am wanting to restore.

The stain of the wood on it is dark in some places and has other places where there is very little or no stain in the wood.

What is the best method of removing all or most of the stain coloring from the wood, so that I can have a uniform colored wood surface when I restore the stock (I know that sanding will get rid of some of the stain in the wood surface but I want to keep sanding to a minimum). I will be using ONLY several coats of Tru-Oil for finish, i.e. will not be applying any additional stain.

In the past I have used something called Purple Power to attempt to remove the old stain from the wood, is there something better than that ???

Thanks.
 
#2 ·
Clorox.

It makes the very top layer white, but the white layer is very shallow, so little sanding is required.
 
#15 ·
I tried Clorox (4 parts water, 1 part Clorox) and man this took as close to 100% of the stain out of the stock that I think you could ever hope for. I soaked the stock about 1 hour on each side.

The resulting stock now looks almost like virgin wood but with a very slight light yellowish hue to it. I have not sanded it yet.

But what I really don't understand is that when I was finished there was no tell, tell, hint of the brownish color of the stain in the Clorox / water solution. What happened to it or is the amount of stain that is on the entirety of a rifle stock such a small amount that it was not detectable in the solution's volume ?

Thanks.
 
#3 ·
Citristrip. Professional furniture restorer's use it daily.
Buy it at Lowe's for a reasonable price :)
Takes off the finish, doesn't muck up the wood.
 
#8 ·
Yeah, stain is like the paint on your car, while "finish" is like "clear coat".
 
#9 ·
What kind of wood is it made from? Some woods do not take stain very well and will look splotchy at best. These are usually woods like beech, birch and the gum stocks used on some Winchesters. You can try using a degreaser and some steel wool to see if you can pull out some of the old oil. Sometimes it is just too well established to get out. There are some elaborate processes to remove oil stains but I am not familiar with them. I often scrub the wood with Simple Green and steel wool. The more you repeat this the more oil will be pulled out. out. If you are referring to the actual stain originally applied to the wood you may be out of luck. The cheaper woods are often colored with process more like a thin coat of paint to make them all one color, then finished over it. This is becoming more common as the quality of wood drops.
 
#10 ·
That "purple power" was a degreaser which will remove oil, but not stains from wood. Murphy's Oil Soap will probably do as well, or Simple Green. Common wood bleaches sold in hardware stores are made of oxalic acid, which is reputed to be the choice of woodworkers for eliminating previous stains in the wood grain. I'd degrease first, to eliminate previous oil rubs, then bleach to remove old stains.

Once you've bleached the wood to the degree of color you want, give the stock a coat of sanding sealer then hit it with some fine steel wool. If you're happy with the color at this point, apply the finish of your choice. If not, treat with stain until you have the desired color, then finish. The sanding sealer helps to seal the pores of the wood so that some parts don't absorb more stain than others. That helps to prevent dark blotches on woods that have open grain. It also helps to raise the grain so that the steel wool can produce a fine, uniform surface.
 
#12 ·
In my opinion, you would do best to use a stripper (stripeze, not Candy ) or a degreaser to remove as much stain as possible. I have had good luck with plain ammonia 50/50 with water and either a olld kitchen scrub pad or fine steel wool.
Regardless of what you use or how you do it, if you want to minimize sanding have a fan and dry rags on hand to wipe the wood dry and use air to finish drying the wood, Water will cause the wood fibers to swell and the longer it stays wet the more "whiskers" you will have to sand off.
Do not be afraid to put the stock in the sun for a while, sunlight can help fade dark stain also.
Post pictures please.
 
#13 · (Edited)
When you stain wood you are changing the color of the top layers of the wood. You can draw out only a certain amount of the stain NOT ALL OF IT.
If you want to get rid of it all it takes SANDING the top layer of wood off.
There is no other way to get ALL the stain off wood.
I do this ALL the time.
I restore 5 to 10 guns a month(This is my job).
If you take your time and use high grit paper(400 to 600) it will not change the shape of the wood.(As long as you do not sand on one spot more then another) And you will end up with a smooth surface to finish off with what ever you chose.
And yes when you have all the stain off you wet down the stock so you "lift" the soft grain and sand it again to level it off before you finish it.
Mike
 
#14 ·
Mike, while I do not disagree with you, the poster wanted to avoid as much sanding as possible. Since most stains are water or alcohol based I feel that water based products tend to help remove them and degreasers of some form will help remove oils; I have had my best luck with ammonia.
Personally, if I never use sandpaper again it is fine with me, spent tooo much time sanding wood and metal.
As far as using bleach I feel that since bleach is a oxidizer it should be avoided, lye or stripper would be better as they do not oxidize organic materials like bleach will.
My opinions only.
 
#17 ·
You won't find any color in the Clorox solution because Clorox isn't a cleaner. It doesn't remove the stain, but chemically changes it to a compound which, in most cases, has no color. Sodium Hypochlorite, the active ingredient in Clorox, is a powerful oxidizer, and attacks a great many other chemicals, including those that color other materials like wood and cloth. Most chloride salts are colorless (excepting iron, which is why you don't bleach blood stains, and a few other metals) and can't be seen in solution or in the host material.
 
#18 ·
I'm glad that bleach helped. In the future you might consider "Whiting". It has some benefits and some drawbacks. On the positive side, it has been used for generations and is generally the way most gunsmiths take the oil, grease and stains out of wood. It is available from Brownell's and some good wood working stores. On the negative side, however, if you talk to woodworkers be aware that some of them will confuse this product with "gilders' whiting," which is not what you want. On the positive side, it is fairly cheap and relatively easy to use. It comes as a white powder and you make a paste and applying it to the wood and allowing it to draw out the oil, grease or stain. On the negative side, you have to mix it with methanol or TCE, acetone, or toluene. Some of the old timers swore by mixing it with gasoline. So it can be volatile -- don't use it in the basement in the winter or anywhere near an open flame!

There are basically two types of stain for wood--oil based or water based. There are also aniline dye based colorants (not technically stains), but they are seldom found on gunstocks with the exception of some high-end commercial manufacturers. Whiting will work on all of them. I've tried the bleach solutions and never been really satisfied with the results. However, a few folks have suggested using oxygenated bleach. You can buy the commercial product or make your own. Just make a paste, spread it on and see what happens. In any event, let us see some pictures when you're finished. Best of luck!
 
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