stormy weekend

[bandit1250]

We had a rather stormy weekend and that put the brakes on drag racing. So I was mostly in my gun room doing a few things and decided to re-cut the checkering on my CZ 452 Trainer. It was quite a chore cutting through that tough lacquer finish and really dulls cutters. I didn't like the filled in look and the poor grip it offered. I worked on it several hours Saturday then took my wife out to eat. Then I woke up at 4:15 Sunday morning and knew I should just get up and do some thing instead of try to go to sleep again. So down stairs to my room and I worked on it a couple more hours. The CZ has flat borders which I really don't like so the hardest part was cutting them to the round top borders that I prefer. They turned out great with no doubt some luck thrown in to keep from over running the lines of the border into the stock out side the pattern and have to do a refinish. A little more time later in the day I went over a few lines to get uniform depth and it was ready to be stained back to the walnut colored finish. This stock is beech and some times beech can be difficult to stain but again I was lucky and the wood tone is very good with the special walnut Min Wax stain. I like it so well I may do some of my other CZ's when we have storms which seems to be quite often lately.

[North Country Gal]

Would love to see some pics if you'd be up to sharing. Know what you mean about beech being tough to stain and work with. I dinged up our CX Ultra Lux and tried to sand down and then re-stain the rough spot. Much different than walnut. Very tough, fibrous wood. Usually a very plain wood, but it can sometimes have some interesting grain. Here's our CZ 452 Trainer.

[bandit1250]

Would love to see some pics if you'd be up to sharing. Know what you mean about beech being tough to stain and work with. I dinged up our CX Ultra Lux and tried to sand down and then re-stain the rough spot. Much different than walnut. Very tough, fibrous wood. Usually a very plain wood, but it can sometimes have some interesting grain. Here's our CZ 452 Trainer.

NCG, I would love to do pictures and tried Imgur and it didn't work for me to use it. I for get what it wanted but kept asking over and over and I got feed up and clicked off and never went back. My wife has before and after pics in her phone of the work I just did and she can send them to a members cell phone if they wanted them. I am not a bragging type but I am thrilled with the way it turned out and was well worth my time. You would have to look at the difference and feel the difference to believe it. This is the first beech I tried this on. I am also happy with the way the beech pointed up and totally satisfied how well it stained for the hard to stain beech. I have always had so so results with staining Marlins with the birch stocks. Better off to use a saddle die from a tack shop. Do you do checkering? I keep tools here just for fixing bad factory checkering and old wore checkering when I have one like the 39A-DL squirrel rifle I am still working on. Not much on doing a complete checkering job as it is just to tiresome on the eyes. You better be able to lay the tools down and walk away before ruing a lot of work you already have done. Tired eyes won't get a good job done. You could do it along with all the other things you can do. I bought a lot of extra tools from tx gunrunner on our forum and he gave me a fantastic buy on them. I am slowly going to re-cut all the beech stocked CZ's but the walnut ones are older and were hand cut at the factory and are not a priority for the checkering right now. I did re-cut the checkering factory cut by CZ on my 2002 American and it looks as well as a Kimber or other high priced rifles. Just got a notion one evening to cut it over so I did it and glad I did. Well I rambled enough but don't have any thing good to tell you about pictures except the cell phone ones. Tell Bill Hi. You two can now shoot out doors with the weather up north maybe getting better. Take care and shoot often. Later, Johnny

[PT7]

Beautiful wood on that CZ!
Sure is a pleasure to have so many "wood lovers" on the Forum, and who also know how to care for their rifle furniture.

....some interesting grain. Here's our CZ 452 Trainer.

....I am thrilled with the way it turned out and was well worth my time. You would have to look at the difference and feel the difference to believe it. This is the first beech I tried this on. I am also happy with the way the beech pointed up and totally satisfied how well it stained for the hard to stain beech.....

[North Country Gal]

Bandit, no time for checkering, but admire anyone with that kind of skill. I think it's great to have someone on the forum who does checkering work. Doubt many do. As for me, just not something these old eyes can handle, anymore. Used to do a lot of fly tying, back on the day, but that's another hobby I gave up to save wear and tear on the eyes. It's also why I find myself using red dots and scopes, more and more, and iron sights less and less.

PT, I think anyone who loves lever guns or other traditional guns loves a good piece of wood. I've been known to buy a gun I otherwise didn't "need" just because of the wood. Speaking of wood, I really am amazed at some of the wood that Henry stocks on their rifles. Probably the best wood I've seen on standard production guns of any brand I've seen.