Birchwood Casey Easy-to-Use Long-Lasting Complete Tru-Oil Stock Finish for Gun Stock Finishing and Maintenance

I love this stuff, and I can't find enough things to use it on! Stocks are just the beginning! Tru-oil is absolutely wonderful stuff! Now when I say that I'm polishing my wood, it isn't a euphemism!I'm a pretty handy guy, but I have moved a lot for work and always rented, so I never had a lot of household woodworking projects to do. I wanted to NICELY refinish a gunstock, but I have never really worked with wood much. I did a LOT of research to try to find a nice method of completing my task and I got a dozen conflicting pieces of advice.Eventually I settled on Tru-Oil, partially thanks to my uncle's recommendation (why not try to trust family above internet forums, right?), partially because of the price, partially because it was designed to preserve gunstocks, and partially because it was one of the easiest finishes to remove if I didn't like it.I am SO GLAD that I used tru-oil. This stuff is great! It really isn't that difficult to work with if you take your time, and the results are amazing! The grain in my stock catches the light and shimmers like a polished tigers-eye gem! I'd add a picture, but I can't take one that does it any justice.And it could have been even better if I had more experience. My impatience and inexperience left a few streaks and such. One day I'll refinish all my old guns to match, and I'll use Tru-Oil along with the lessons I learned in my first attempt.Some tips I learned in my first attempt: 1) Thin coats. Lots of them. A little goes a long way. I got in a hurry and ended up with some heavily-oiled areas and drops that I had to sand down, and I never got it all to match perfectly again. 2) Prep. I did a pretty good job of this, but I see how important it was. Your wood should be very well prepared and sanded super-smooth before starting. 3) WEAR GLOVES - the tru-oil does not wash off easily with regular soap and it took forever to get it off of my hands. After the first coat I started using latex gloves and cleanup was much easier. 4) If you use the stain, be very careful to do everything in one batch and in one pass. The stain's intensity multiplies with each brush stroke, so it is important to be completely even-handed. 5) If you don't have one, try to rig up some kind of drying rack so that you can coat a whole piece at a time rather than one side at a time (I used some folded cardboard to make a stand that only touched upon the unfinished surfaces). 6) You'll need more 0000 steel wool and rags than come with the kit. Possibly more sandpaper too. There is plenty of oil to do a few rifles. 7) The tru-oil by itself was too slick and shiny for my liking, the B.C. conditioner and wax just tidied everything up perfectly.I'm hooked and I highly recommend this stuff. I hope that helps.

This kit and company is still #1. I will never use anything else. The quality results i get are to die for. Once its all said and done it not tacky or sticky. I absolutely love the control of shade you have. No matter how many coats you do, if you want it a bit darker? Put another on. Let it dry thoroughly. Dont over saturate but if u do sand and repeat. Definitely wet sand after 4 hours of first coat to get a self made wood filler with same color. It is high gloss when finished but not sticky at all. Smooth to the touch. Slides in my palm when spinning my revolver. Looks store bought. I had my son burn a design in a set of triceratop wood grips i bought on here and even the burnt wood absorbed the stain. Just dont use cotten or felt. Dont polute ur finish with fabric debris. Using ur damn fingers and rub each coat in nice n firmly. After about 5 coats i got a rich dark walnut shade. Amazing!!

Everything came on time and as described

My first and so far only project was refinishing the stock on a Ruger 10/22. I decided to sand it down to bare wood first, and the reason I knocked one star off the rating is that there's not nearly enough sandpaper in the package to take a finish down to bare wood. Fortunately I had lots already, and wet-or-dry sandpaper is the way to go; the provided sandpaper apparently isn't. I did not use any paint/stain stripper, but did wipe the stock with mineral spirits several times between sanding and especially after the final sanding.I watched some YouTube videos before starting the satining and oiling, but should have watched more before hand. After applying the stain (I diluted mine about 4 parts concentrate to 1 part water), letting dry, then putting on the first coat of Tru Oil, the stock looked so bad I was about to sand back down to bare wood and get some Minwax products and start over. Then I found a video that said that it WILL look horrible after just one coat of TruOil! So I persevered and I'm glad I did. Patience isn't one of my virtues, but patience is required!One note: the supplied stain is water-based and walnut. If you want a different color of stain Minwax has a good selection of water-based stains. I don't know how well the Tru-Oil will work over solvent-based stains or other stain/polyurethane combination products.Don't use your fingers to apply the TruOil. The supplied instructions, and several videos or written directions, said to use your fingers to apply the TruOil. That made it very hard to put on enough oil, uniformly, without getting runs from too much. So, per a few other videos I cut a piece of new shop rag (clean white cotton of any sort will do), folded it so I had several layers of about a 3x3 inch pad, and used that as an applicator, applying the oil directly on the pad. (Be sure to keep fuzzy cut fabric ends away from the part of the pad you'll use to apply the oil. ) That made it far easier to put on the smooth, thin coats of oil that are needed.Fortunately with good weather I only had to wait about 3 hours for one coat of oil to dry. I sanded (water-wet 400 and 600 grit) in between (when and where necessary) then the next coat of oil. I'm now at 3 coats of oil and the stock looks great .I guess I'll have to wait a week or so to apply the satin finish product that's supplied; right now I think the stock looks too glossy with just the oil on it.One thing I didn't try, but found on YouTube, was to wet sand the first coat of oil while it's still wet. Supposedly that mixes fine wood dust with oil and forces it into any pores in the wood. I didn't see a need to do that.The supplied bottle of Tru-Oil was enough to do the stock, by the way, and there's some left over.It takes practice and patience, and I think it's an acquired art... although I don't plan on refinishing any more stocks to get the skills from repetition. Nonetheless I'm pleased enough that I can recommend the product without hesitation.

This kit gives you everything you need to refinish a stock (or finish a new stock as I did). Instructions were very easy to follow and appreciated the tips in the instructions as found them very helpful. Finish comes out very nice and if you follow instructions to apply each coat with your finger and put it on thin you will get great final finish (I thought I could take a short cut and applied first coat with a brush and it resulted in a lot of runs and extra work sanding them out). Kit contains enough to easily do 2 stocks or more (you might need to get more sandpaper and steel wool).