What do you leave on a stock when you apply your finish?

[DavidC]

I've seen a few posts now where folks have mentioned leaving things like a trigger and buttplate in place during finishing and that makes sense but the barrel? Is it depending on if it's pinned or keyed or if you epoxy sealed it by accident when you did some escutcheon around the pins?

Even the books I have don't seem on agreement so I'm assuming folks here won't be. Can someone share what they do and someone else tell me why they're wrong? 

[rich pierce]

I leave anything pinned or screwed down on the stock, excepting barrel, lock, and sideplate. So, patchbox, buttplate, inlays, thimbles, nosecap all stay on.

[Daniel Coats]

I leave the pins in the stock for the barrel so that they don't fill up with stock finish.

[Mike Brooks]

I leave anything pinned or screwed down on the stock, excepting barrel, lock, and sideplate. So, patchbox, buttplate, inlays, thimbles, nosecap all stay on.

Ditto

[rich pierce]

I leave the pins in the stock for the barrel so that they don't fill up with stock finish.

Pro tip! Going to start doing this.

[Robby]

I use 1/16" weld rod for pins. I take a longer piece of it, grind a flat, pit it in a drill and run it through the pin holes after finishing, any varnish is collected in the flat and removed. fast, and clean.
Robby

[TommyG]

I leave everything including the barrel.  I wax all parts first to act as a release agent.  I have pins that are maybe an 1/8" undersized on length so when the holes do fill with finish, I use a 1/16" pin vise to clean them up before removing the pins to avoid tear out.  IMO spending time creating good inlets, then having to re-scrape the finish out of them just doesn't make sense, not to mention there is a bit of risk involved chipping or damaging the finish.  I should mention that my first coat I apply with nothing in place to seal everything.  Also, I don't hang the gun either (I've seen & heard horror stories, too risky), I made a stand out of some scrap 2x4's that I stand the gun in to finish.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I remove everything that is permanantly attached to the wood, ie:  inlays like escutcheon plates, wrist inlay, decorative inlays.  I remove the patchbox, and all hardware and parts.  Sometimes, I have to do a little scraping in inlets to allow those parts to fit properly again.  When I remove screws for things like patchbox, I place place screw in a hole in a block of wood labelled so I know where it goes when the finishing is done.  I hang the wood from a hook during the drying/curing time.  I remove finish build up from inlays with 0000 steel wool and ScotchBrite pads when the finishing is done.

[paulitus]

I put all the screws and small parts in a little plastic ramekin, which I then misplace, so I can spend hours looking for it when the stock is finished.

[t.caster]

Hmmm, I take everything off for staining & sealing except the nose cap and any small inlays which are permanently pinned on. I only put the buttplate on for finish applications, because the stock stands up for drying. It doesn't bother me to scrape a little finish out of inlays or pin holes once done.

[PAFlinter]

I put all the screws and small parts in a little plastic ramekin, which I then misplace, so I can spend hours looking for it when the stock is finished.

This sounds about right to me!