Restoring another Remington 512 Sportmaster part 1

Today is December 7th...Pearl Harbor Day, remember to raise Old Glory at sunrise.

Last year at this time I posted the restoration of my brother's Remington 512 Sportmaster.

Well he bought another one and has asked me to perform the same treatment to this one.

As usual this gun had seen some use and some neglect. Here are the before pictures:

Some heathen had put a layer of varnish over the walnut, we'll strip it, steam out the dents, sand the scratches and refinish it with Minwax Antique Oil

Some light freckling on the trigger guard

There is almost no blueing on the receiver

wear at the muzzle

The bolt has lost some of the color case hardening, we may strip it down, polish it and reblue it.

First step is disassembly, I was nitre bluing some screws for another project, so I went ahead and pulled the screws off of this rifle to blue at the same time.
The butt plate screws were a bit rusty

 Here they are soaking in oil after the nitre bluing

Next we start on the stock. I often use Citri-Strip finish remover, it is safe for indoor use and you don't need gloves or a respirator, just brush it on and wait 20 minutes

Then wipe off with a paper towel  

After wiping down and drying

There are some nasty gouges we will need to fix, we will see if steam will raise them, if not we will have to sand them out

I am still amazed at how well this trick works, it's hard to tell be the picture but the dents are considerably shallower than they were

On to the sanding, one are we needed to fix was the grip cap. It had one big chip and a bunch of smaller ones. I also noticed it was not square to the bottom of the stock

Using a file I trued up the flat part while also removing some material, some sanding on the face removed the rest

 Here is the ugly part after sanding to 100 grit

and 400 grit

The stock is now ready for oil

We'll use the Minwax Antique Oil

After the first coat is rubbed in by hand until dry, we let it cure for 24hrs

Then we wet the stock with oil again and gently sand with 600 grit wet/dry sand paper, then we rub the slurry (mix of oil and sanding dust) into the grain of the wood. This will fill the grain and provide a super smooth look and feel to the wood

After 3 rounds of sanding and filling the grain, we add one last hand rubbed in coat, then before putting up to cure, we wipe the oil off of the stock (with a lint free cloth), with the grain, this will provide a perfect satin finish

Here is the finished product. This stock had quite a bit of the sap wood (blond color), which doesn't bother me, it is part of dealing with walnut and this gun being a .22 was never meant to have a high end piece of lumber attached to it. The factory probably dyed or varnished the stock to get an even color.

A close up of the satin or "egg shell" finish

Stay tuned for Part 2