| AK Furniture Refinishing
by Perro Del Diablo |
First remove the magazine
and open the action to ensure that the rifle is not loaded.
When I first bought my Century Arms Romanian SAR 1, it
had this awful burgundy painted on finish. It was uneven,
it had runs and sags all over it, and i knew that this
would be the very first thing that was going to have to
be improved upon. Here is a look at the rifle before hand: |
 |
| I know its kind of dark,
but its the only before hand picture i could find of a
sar that was finished with the burgundy paint on finish.
Ive had a few experiances with refinishing wood stocks
before, and knew that even if it wasn't pretty wood underneath,
at least it could be painted black and made into an evil
assault rifle. |
So I headed down to Home Depot, and
picked up a few things -
#1 #0000 fine steel wool pads (2 was all i needed)
#2 course grade steel wool (1 was all i needed)
#3 BIX stripper (i bought the quart)
#4 some semi gloss minwax polyurethane (1 can)
The total was around $20.00
Here are some pictures of the cans of BIX, and Poly
so you know what to look for:
|
  |
| The first thing that you
will need to do is find a place outside that will work
for doing ths modification - the BIX stripper puts off
some pretty nasty fumes. I found an old piece of plywood
that i used to shield everything from the stripper - the
stripper will discolor your concrete, metal surfaces,
and even glass, so i used a piece of plywood that i didnt
care about.
Now get a small bucket of water (a 5 gallon pale works
perfect) and fill it with water - set it next to the
plywood.
Then get out the course steel wool, and drop it into
the bucket of water.
Next you will need to remove the furniture from your
rifle and set them aside. For instructions on how to
do that, please click
here.
Please note that if youre rifle is parkerized like mine
was from Century, you do not need to remove the gas
tube from your upper receiver - the BIX will not harm
the parkerizing. If you have painted the rifle, then
you will need to remove the gas tube because the BIX
will remove the paint.
|
| Once you have the furniture
laid out on the scrap plywood, and you have your bucket
of water waiting with the course steel wool pad in it,
open up the quart of BIX. You will notice that the BIX
is the consistency of thick syrup - this is good because
the more you have sitting on the wood, the better it works!!
I started with the buttstock - i dont recommend doing
all the pieces at once, because if the BIX dries, its
a pain.
Pour the BIX onto the buttstock, and take a rubber
glove, and spread the bix over the entire buttstock
- then take your hand (with the rubber glove on) and
wipe up the BIX that spilled onto the plywood, and take
this and work it all over the buttstock - the more BIX
you have on it, the better it will work. i poured a
decent amount onto the buttstock, and it all ran off
onto the plywood so i took the buttstock, and rolled
it into the BIX that was on the plywood - remember -
the more that you have on the wood, the better job it
will do.
After about a minute, or two - you will notice the
BIX turning dark black or dark burgundy - this means
that its ready to scrub the old finish off with the
steel wool. take the steel wool from the bucket of water,
and shake the excess water off of the steel wool, and
then start scrubbing the buttstock with as much pressure
as you want - you will begin to see a bright orange
piece of wood underneath the old finish - once all of
the burgundy crap is scrubbed off - dunk the buttstock
into the pale of water, and scrub some more with the
steel wool - once you pull the buttstock out of the
water, you will see that most of the old finish is gone.
There will be spots where the old finish wasnt removed
- simply recoat the buttstock with the bix in the spots
where the old finish is left, and wait for a minute
or two, and then start scrubbing these areas with the
steel wool, and then dunk, and scrub in the water until
all the old finish is gone - ive noticed that a wire
brush in the shape of an old toothbrush will take off
the old stain in the hard to get to areas like around
the buttstock where the buttpad mounts. dont scrub too
hard, or it will take sanding to remove the scratches
from the visible areas of the wood. You do not need
to let the buttstock dry in between coats of BIX, but
i would wipe the excess moisture down with an old rag.
Below is a pic of what the wood might look like with
the finish off:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Follow the exact same procedure with the
lower handguard, and the upper handguard, and if you have
a wood pistol grip, you can do it with that also. |
|
|
