Woodworking - dying/staining wood to match (ak furniture refinish)

[Brian]

I'm starting to refinish my wasr-10 furniture. Sanded away most of the old finish, and the rear stock is definitely a lighter wood than the front handguards. I'm ultimately going to aim for a medium dark red finish, using some sort of combination of rit dye, stain, and tung oil.

My question for those of you who do a lot of wood finish work - anything I can/should do before starting the refinish (to try to darken the stock so it matches a little closer to the handguards)? I'm not super picky, but it would be nice if in the end they end up looking roughly the same. Or is it just a matter of more coats of either dye or stain on the stock vs. the handguards, more or less "winging it" until they're close.

[ray1970]

Wood working really isn't my cup of tea but I have done it from time to time. Refinished a few rifle stocks as well.

Some of the stains I've used give a darker finish the more coats you put on.

Maybe a couple of coats on the handguards and then keep going with extra coats on the stock until it pretty much matches?

However it turns out I'm sure it's going to look good. Even if they don't match exactly it shouldn't be too noticeable since the handguard and stock aren't right up against each other.

Also, I don't see the pistol grip in your picture. You shouldn't be too worried about the stock and handguard matching if the pistol grip doesn't match as well.

[zteknik]

I have done tons of ak stocks, I dont worry about how the bare wood looks. It's pretty much adjusting the stain as you go. First I would stain the butstock to the lightness or darkness of stain you want, then do your handguards and adjust stain accordingly.
That style furniture normaly matches after staining without any adjustments to the color. Just brush on and go

[Brian]

Sweet I'll give it a try. After the way this week went, it was nice to be able to just sit there and sand wood for a while. Something mindless and repetitive.
The WASRs usually have black plastic grips... given how cheap it is, and the fact it's a post sample machine gun - I didn't feel like spending money on nice replacement furniture, but I did figure I could stain it at least.

[zteknik]

Yup, I know what you mean, thats why I have done tons of them
I'll check my parts bins once I get home and see if I have any nice looking Rommy grips for ya.

[jerrymrc]

I like red.

[Tim K]

Typical pigmented stains that you buy at the big box stores are basically just thin paint and give you one color regardless of how much you apply. Subsequent applications don't deepen the color appreciably. Once the pores of the wood are full of pigment, additional stain just washes over them. This behavior is precisely why they are popular, it's very easy to get even coloring.

Dye stains are quite uncommon and work very differently. Additional coats or applications do increase the depth of color. They are very difficult to use. When we use them in my shop, we only spray them. We run the gun with lots of air and not much fluid and shade parts up to the correct color much like airbrushing.

There are some hybrid stains out there that will combine some of the properties of both. You'll have to go to a specialty store like Woodcraft to find them.

The darker the stain, the less noticeable the difference in the original wood color will be. If you choose a deep colored pigmented stain, you may find that the differences in the raw wood just disappear.

[ray1970]

Oh, and please post up pictures when you get them finished.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is curious to see how they turn out.