Refinishing the Restocked Remington Summit Part 2

Back at it.

Made this palm rest years ago when I added a palm rest to my B26-2 rifle.  At the time, this was a prototype that didn't make the final cut.  I'd thrown it into a parts drawer on the off chance it could be repurposed.  It's made from padauk wood.  Note the vivid red color--That's from the Tru-Oil I used way (waaaaaayyyyy) back in 2017 for the original finish.  

Since it didn't fit the Remington stock as it was, it was cut down then re-profiled on a belt sander

Freshly sanded bare padauk is a bright orange color.  

This face is still red from the original Tru-Oil.

Still a bit too large at the front edge...

More shaping and sanding.

 

All orange, all the sides have been sanded.  The mounting hole lines up .

Contour is looking OK.

Burnished in a coat of Tru-Oil and it's back to red for the test fit.

More of the test fitting.

Good enough.  Two more coats of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil to really fill the grain.

Love the red color.  Over time--especially with UV exposure--the red will fade away into a brown color.  Keeping the gun in a case or safe should help prolong the color for several years.

And of course, there's a screw cup to be made.   Some 12L14 steel. 

Intentionally made it a bit too long

Scratched a line around the OD following the curves of the palm shelf

After some grinding and filing.

It's close.  Just a few high spots left.

Done.

Blued the screw cup

I made/modified a square nut to fit into the Anschutz t-track inlet into the grip of the rifle.  I also cut a shallow pocket for a 5/16" diameter rubber disk.  The rubber disk just barely stands above the wood surface.  It's there to add friction and help keep the palm shelf from rotating in use.

Still lukewarm to the stock's color consistency.  I'll blame it on the beech wood, though I do like the way the grain came through.  I think that aspect is much nicer than the original factory finish.  The palm rest is extremely comfortable in use and ensures consistent hand placement.  Certainly helps the rifle's pointability.  This works incredibly well on thumbhole stocks. 

Thanks for following along.    More soon.

Refinishing the Restocked Remington Summit Part 1

Mentioned a while back that I wanted to refinish the stock currently on the Remington Summit.  

Backstory:  My original Remington Summit stock had started to crack.  I bought a replacement stock for a Benjamin NP2 and managed to retrofit my Remington Summit action into it.  

Really just wanted a darker finish.  Easier said than done when the wood in question is beech.  Beech is notoriously difficult to evenly tone.  The wood tends to look blotchy when a dark finish is applied.  Guess I'm saying I wanted to do this even though I didn't expect to be thrilled with the outcome.

Here goes anyway.

 

The original finish was pretty tenacious--probably an epoxy.   The chemical stripper didn't really do much.  Had to sand most of it off.

This got me further in an hour than the stripper did over three evenings. 

About here, I was reconsidering the refinish decision.  But before I threw down some color, decided to revisit the palm rest addition I had made years ago on my B26-2.

This entailed a quick side trip to the milling machine.  The blue on the table is painter's tape.  Was hoping the tape would be kinder to the wood stock than bare metal.

 A couple toe clamps with some wood shims as padding.

Had this short piece of Anschutz rail.

Not reinventing the wheel here.  The B26-2 is so comfortable to shoot, I want to make this almost identical in function.    Just need to recess a short section of the t-track rail so I can add an adjustable palm support.

About this deep.

 

And about this much for vertical adjustment.

Then cut and ground the rail stub to fit.

Eventually, a couple coats of a walnut stain from Varathane got rubbed in.

Not shown:  Didn't think it was nearly dark enough, so a coat of red mahogany was added as a top coat.  

Which got the color to here.  I gave it three or four days to dry.  And yeah, I'm not thrilled with it.  Too blotchy in spots.    

Anyway, onward, upward--or something like that.  Started rubbing in multiple coats of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil to fill the grain.

I am pretty happy about how much more grain is visible now.  That original epoxy finish hid almost all this nice wood grain.

Rubbed the finish out then gave it a coat of paste wax.

Dropped the action back in.

Blackened the stub of Anchutz rail with Aluminum Black then screwed it home.

Still need to make the palm rest.   

Appreciate everyone who's following along.  

More soon.