JP Sauer Drilling

[grapppa]

I have been busy restoring my JP. After I bought it, I decided to restore the stock as it was poorly refinished. I did a lot of research for the project and wanted to update you for those who may be interested in doing same. Here is the stock prior to refinishing.

CIMG6926.jpg

Fast forward a few weeks later, here is the stock after steaming dents out, a little checkering work on the handguard and inletting new wood harvested from the buttstock of the drilling.

CIMG7196.jpg

[grapppa]

Here is the stock after dying wood with Fiebings dark brown.

CIMG7221.jpg

I am going to put a tru-oil finish on the wood. I would be happy to elaborate on any of the steps I've taken for those who are interested. I think its looking OK. I was lucky enough to find a very original 1910s vintage JP and am trying to replicate the finish I saw on it - boy was it nice! Hell, I may buy the gun!

[mike ford]

grappa,
Nice work, are you going to do any metal work?
Mike

[grapppa]

No Mike... no plans for that!

[Mt Al]

Looking good! Would like to know what you used to strip the original finish. Thanks

[grapppa]

Sorry for the late reply...I used Citristrip - bought at Lowes - it is an orange citrus based stripper. Worked fine and is gentle on the wood. It is not nearly as noxious as other strippers with tolulene, xylene and all those other bad "enes"... That said, I would still recommend a well ventilated area if you are going to be using it for an extended work session....

In fact, I had to start over and re-strip the wood after the first attempt at applying the first topcoat finish with Tru Oil. I didn't like the color after applying the tru oil on the feibings. The stripper again worked perfectly. I decided to start with Feibings, seal with shellac spray then apply old masters stain, then tru oil. Much better result as the stain "evens out" the irregularities in the grain / color of the wood. Been working on this for the past 3 weeks and am pretty close to finished. Will post pics soon.