Winchester Model 67 Project Part 1

 A friend of mine asked me to refinish his son's .22 rifle. I recognized it immediately as a Winchester model 67, single shot, 22.

Made from 1934 to 1963, just under 400,000 were produced.

This one is an early version, 1st or 2nd year production as it has the finger grooves in the stock and the external thumbscrew.

Here is a representative picture

disassembly is always the 1st step. The bolt is removed by holding the trigger down and pulling it rearwards

The stock is removed by simply unthreading the take-down thumb screw.

I then disassemble the bolt so I can reblue the cocking handle

Then I drift out the sights

You can see the degraded finish, or lack thereof

Then I remove the trigger guard and butt plate from the stock

The takedown screw was a little beat up, so I gently pounded the metal back into place and used a file to clean up the surface

The next step is refinishing the wood, someone had applied several coats of varnish, now we need to strip it off so we can apply a traditional oil finish. I use Citristrip as it is non-toxic and gets the job done.

Once the varnish has bubbled up, I scrape it off with a putty knife, then using acetone and steel wool, I scrub the surface until clean.

Once clean it is ready for sanding, but we must reattach the butt plate before sanding or we risk rounding the edge of the wood.

Once the butt plate is reinstalled, we begin sanding with 100 grit clot backed sandpaper. I use a block to prevent dishing out the wood.

Immediately it became obvious that the previous refinish job was done sans butt plate, we will need to remove material to get it flat again. We could cut a sliver off the back of the butt plate, or sand it smooth, either way not much needs to be taken away.

I opted to use the belt sander (60 grit) and remove just enough to make the line disappear and both surfaces flush

Once the whole stock has been sanded with 100 grit, we look for dents, I found several of them.

The two biggest dents were both on the left side of the stock.

I attempted to steam them out, using a wet rag (old pieces of a t-shirt) and an iron.

After steaming the grain will be raised, so I went back and re-sanded those areas with 100 grit.

Not all dents can be removed, sometimes the wood fibers are broken or too deeply smashed to lift, some imperfections will have to be lived with.

Stayed tuned, in the next post we will finish the sanding and begin applying the traditional oil finish.