Henry Rifle Forums

I stripped the factory tinted poly finish off my GB stock to refinish with oil, I was shocked and very pleased with what I found! And before

Agreed....uniquely beautiful wood grains and color.
No doubt that you've found a fantastic wood treasure!

most interesting grain pattern .... unique indeed .... nicely done

Beautiful. Can't wait to see how it ends up when you're finished finishing it. That was one gnarly walnut tree!

Cool. That's going to look great once you get it oiled up. What type of oil are you going to use?

Thanks guys!
I'm beyond happy with the wood!
I'm doing a Tru-oil finish

That will look very good. Custom rifle.

Just got my GB back together,
I am beyond excited with how it turned out!

This gun was beautiful out of the box, but now it is a true show piece with a split personality lol

Ran out of room on that post, here's the other side of the forestock

Looks good...that TruOil dries quick!
I'll have to try it out. I usually use many very thin coats of BLO (boiled linseed oil), or Tung oil. It normally takes at least a month with those slow drying oils.

What did you strip it with?

Klean-strip in the aerosol can

Thank you. Was it hard to do. I can't wait to get started.

Not at all, I spray the stocks down and let em sit for about 30min, scrape the stripper and factory finish off with a plastic scraper, then reapply stripper if necessary.
Once it's stripped I wash the stock with dish soap to get any excess stripper off and then wet sand with 320 to remove any remaining finish and/or stain.
Once that's done I hit it with 600 grit, wipe down, dry the wood overnight and start oiling the next day.
I don't know if you mess with chemical strippers much, but this stuff is very stout, good gloves are a must cause you don't want it on your skin whatsoever lol

Very Nice! It reminds me of the Bed I found in the attic of my first house and stripped. The headboard was black with age but I used Formby's Chemical Stripper, very gentle. As I was wiping away the stripper I thought I had done something wrong as there were streaks of different colors in the headboard. Turns out there were about fourteen different woods inlaid into the headboard. It had a sunrise, mountains, a cabin... and much more hidden under that old finish.

Very good looking! I will wear gloves. The one thing that concerns me is how do I get the barrel off the forearm, Do you have to disassemble the gun are can you leave parts in tack.
I am looking at doing a H001M.

Beautiful job! Makes you wonder what's under ALL of our Henry stocks, doesn't it? I think I'll try you method on my cheap-o single shot 16 ga I just picked up and see what's what.

Awesome work! That's a candidate to send to Henry for their online scrapbook, for sure!

It is very simple, no need to disassemble the gun and definitely not the barrel.
Simply remove the barrel band screw, slide the band off the forestock, and then pull the forestock away from the barrel

Thank you. I thought I would have to do a major disassembly. My new Henry looks like plastic and I hate it. With all your help, I will be able to make it look wonderful. Wish me luck, I am going to follow your formulas to a T. I got so excited I took the forearm and butt off my H001M. Now I am waiting for all the goodies to come from Amazon. I even ordered a large loop to have the gunsmith put on after I finish.Thanks again.

Just take your time!
It takes a few coats of oil before it starts to look like something, rub a coat on and then lightly rub it off and let it dry.
Then repeat.
You're looking at nearly 20 coats to fill the grain and have a perfectly smooth finish, I didn't take this one that far as I wanted a little grain showing.
Either way, just stop when you are satisfied!
And on the lever, you can easily change it out yourself.
There are several videos online showing the procedure, it's not difficult at all and Henry even provides instructions.