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I've been a bit of a lurker on PW since I joined, so its about time I contributed a bit. I thought I'd share how I refinished the stock of a 1969 AYA Yeoman bought recently from a Holts sealed bid auction. This was the first time I've tried anything like this so it was a learning experiment for me. I'm posting this on the off-chance that it might be of interest. As I bought the gun unseen (apart from a single photo & brief description on the Holts website) I wasn't quite sure what condition it would be in when it finally arrived. As it happens it was mechanically sound, with only very minor scuffing of the left chamber, good bores and good bore thicknesses (left .035", right .040" - much more than the recommended minimum of .020"). It had a very minor dent in the right barrel, so minor that I didn't detect it, but the keen eyes of Frank, my local gunsmith, spotted it and straightened it out in less than a minute with a barrel dent raiser and a 4oz hammer. Overall it was in reasonably good condition, and Frank & I suspect that it's not seen much use in it's forty or so years. It has most of its original colour hardening and the bluing also appears to be original and in good condition, even on the top lever which suggests that it's not been opened that often. So far so good. However the stock had seen better days - numerous cabinet marks, scratches and dents, plus what looks suspiciously like a hole made by a woodworm - but at least this suggests that the gun has been left in store for a number of years instead of being used. The stock as it was originally. Dents to the hand of the stock Dents in the forend wood Before stripping the factory varnish I removed all the metalwork from the forend and remove the action from the stock. In order to avoid stripping the heads of the screws with regular screwdrivers I made up some DIY turnscrew bits from few old screwdriver bits I had by filing down either side of the bit to leave it straight and parallel. DIY turnscrew bits To remove the forend extractor mechanism I removed the dome-headed screw from the underside of the forend and then the small screw on the top side that passes through the diamond-shaped washer. Once this screw was removed, the washer itself was gently tapped out with a pin punch. Using a pin punch to tap out the washer from behind The washer working loose Moving onto the stock, in order to remove the action the first screw to remove was the trigger guard screw, followed by the trigger guard itself, which simply winds out on a threaded pin at the front of the guard. Trigger guard removed from stock & action Then the rear trigger plate screw was removed, followed by the top tang screw, which is located under the top lever - the top lever must be pushed in order to gain access to the screw head. Once these are removed, the last screw to undo was the trigger plate screw, which was the largest and most difficult to get turning. Once removed the trigger plate was tapped loose by passing a pin punch between the flats of the action until it met the underside of the trigger plate. One or two taps and it worked loose. At this point the action, trigger plate and stock all parted company and the gun was fully stripped down. Yeoman in component form The next step was to strip the factory finish, in this case a layer of varnish with added stain/colour. I used Nitromors brushed onto the wood and left a minute or two to bubble & blister. Paint-stripping the factory finish I removed the Nitromors by gently scrubbing with 0000 gauge wire wool and most of the varnish came off with one coat but one or two stubborn spots needed a second coat & scrub. After finishing all the paint-stripping, the wood turned out to be very light. Nice clean wood but lighter than expected I chose to remove the worst of the dents in the wood by covering them with a damp tea towel and ironing them - I was a little sceptical at first that this method would work, but work it does, and very nicely too. Some of the deeper dents took a couple of goes to remove, and one or two dents just wouldn't disappear but on the whole I was impressed at how easy and effective this technique turned out to be. Next I sanded the wood down with fine grade sandpaper to remove any grain that had risen during the stripping and ironing - it was easy to tell as the surface feels almost gritty to the touch and reflects light in a different way to the rest of the wood. The aim here was to remove as little wood as possible, just to flatten down the grain to an even, smooth finish. At this point I toyed with the idea of applying a stain to the wood - I have a bottle of Birchwood Casey walnut stain but it comes out of the bottle very dark, almost black and I thought that this would mask all of the grain & figuring. I hoped that the Tru-Oil I planned to use to finish the wood would darken it up as well. As it turned out it did darken it but not as much as I was hoping. The stock darkened a little as the first coat of Tru-Oil went on Next time I do this I'll use some stain, perhaps diluted 50/50 with water and give it a couple of coats until I get the right shade & depth. Given that this is the first time I've tried this, I'll chalk it up to experience (or lack of it) and learn for next time. Stock after the first coat of Tru-Oil The Tru-Oil went on nicely - the hard part I found was avoiding smudging bits I'd already coated as I worked my way around the stock. The first four coats I left for 24 hours and then rubbed down gently with 0000 wire wool to remove some runs and smudges. The 5th and 6th coats went on with no rubbing down in between - these were very light, thin coats dabbed on by a finger and rubbed in by the palm of the hand until the dab spread out. After the 6th coat had dried the finish was looking pretty good (to me at least!). So now all that was left was to put it all back together again. This was the part I'd been looking forward to the most; seeing the gun with a shiny new stock & forend. Collection of shiny parts ready for reassembly Reassembled gun Some before & after pics... Forend dents: before Forend dents: after Dents at hand: before Dents at hand: after ironing, sanding and Tru-Oil Next time round, I'd definitely want to stain the wood before finishing, but apart from I'm pretty pleased with the way it all turned out.