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Carbine K-31 Hunt

Sanding and Oil finishing

In order to keep the cheek smooth and shining bright, it requires a lot of sanding work. The tools used thereby were a vibration sanding machine, different rough to fine rasps and sandpaper. The granulations of the sandpaper were between 80, 120, 200, 300 to 600. After each sanding step I rubbed the stock with a piece of wet cloth to pull up the “wood hair”. Then I could take the next finer sandpaper and redo the work. Those steps were repeated until the stock was sandpapered with the 600 and the stock was smoothly polished. Many people use the steel wool 000 as well but I did not use it for my stock. I screwed the stock pattern on to the stock to get the form. Afterwards with the steel saw I got the form. With the vibration-sanding machine I did the fine sanding work on the pattern.

The last step was the oiling of the stock. I particularly like the product “Schaftol Extra Dark” www.kaehny.de/pflege/pflege.htm to get the darkness and satin finish to the stock. I repeated this process three times. Between the oiling processes the stock must be dried at room temperature, this works best for the drying process.  Thus prevents that the stock twists and splits itself. One of the last steps was the assembling of the rifle. The big moment! Is the barrel free floating? Did everything fit? After sanding and small carving knife corrections the K-31 fits tight into the stock.

I took a hundred Swiss Francs bill, wound around the barrel and I could pull the bill through up to the receiver without resistance. Fantastic – the barrel is absolute free floating – without any contact with the stock!