Redoing a Beeman RS2 stock

[SirNomad]

I was thinking of refinishing the stock on my Beeman RS2 and I realized that there's an inset where they put the little "Beeman" plastic doohickey. My thought is that I could narrow that part of the stock on both sides, but I'm not sure what the best tools to do that with are. Any suggestions? This is my opportunity to cover up/remove some dings and scrapes that have bothered me for a while, and possibly lighten up the stock a little.

Also, any suggestions for a tough finish that will help the stock look nice longer? I like the wood grain, so bedliner is definitely out!

[SDale]

A table saw would be ideal. But a belt sander would also work.

[SirNomad]

I have a little 1" bench mount belt sander, unfortunately I don't have a workshop or work table at the moment, so everything's been smaller hand tools. I don't own a table saw and I don't have a place to put one even if I did own one. I'm not sure if I should pick up some hand planes and the like or what in order to narrow down the sides of this stock.

[daveshoot]

I think a hand plane would only be good for the roughest sizing and the rest is best done by hand with a sanding block. I learned the hard way that almost everything related to contouring and finishing a stockis best done by hand, with a block (unless you have a jillion dollar duplicator and maybe even then).

I really like the Birchwood-Casey Tru Oil product. It is tried and true by thousands of gun owners and readily available in gun stores. They have a great pamphlet you can download, "Warm Wood Cool Steel", that pretty well walks you through the process: http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/sport/index.htmlThe only thing I would add is that scotch brite works better than steel wool, when you get down to the final finishing.

The in-between step is the stain, and that is a whole subject of its own... I settled on Minwax Oil stain with the oil pre-conditioner, after some frustrating blunders.

Note I am a total amateur but read a ton. I wrecked my project, then started over, and the above are what worked and what I should have done in the first place.Now it is my routine.

[triry]

dave,....not to hijack the thread; but.................
how are julie and your daughter doing ? we havent seen any pics yet !!!!!!!!!!

[mjb108]

I agree with Dave's suggestion to use hand sanding blocks.  Start with coarse grit and work up to the finer ones.  It's ashame that Beeman chose to put that plastic thing on there in the first place!!  Talk about bad taste.  I have the same gun and always wondered what I could do to get rid of that silly thing.  Please post pictures of how it comes out!

Mike