Weekend Woodworking Project

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not exactly a handyman. When I bought my Romanian Civil Guard AK a few months back, I was kind of bugged by the fact that the furniture was poorly finished and mismatched. The stock, lower hand-guard and upper hand-guard were all stained different colors. This weekend, I began the long and pretty labor-intensive process of fixing that. I sanded everything down with 100 grit, followed by 150 grit and 200 grit sandpaper. Than I applied two coats of Red Oak stain with a day of drying in between. Then came four coats of semi-gloss poly varnish with a light hit of 320 grit sandpaper between each coat. I'm pretty happy with the end result:

You did a great job with some crappy wood. Those Romanian AKs aren't know for using great wood for the furniture, but it looks pretty darn good.

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The wood was indeed pretty crappy with worn edges in spots and grain running both ways. I sanded it out as best I could and picked a reasonably dark stain to minimize the blemishes. I used a semi-gloss poly coat exactly because it does somewhat obscur the grain. The last thing I wanted on that wood was a pristine high-gloss finish that would make the blemishes stand out.

Looks nice. I'd be curious to see it under angle to see how glossy it is.

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Here's a few close-ups that give a better idea of how it came out. The first picture shows how terrific the finish is on some of the metal. Now that the wood looks passable, I think I'm going to have to Duracoat/Duraheat the rest of the rifle.