Quote Originally Posted by rescuerandy2 View Post
with a bit of rot needing some debridement
I got stuck on this. There are at least 2 possibilities.
1) The "rot" could just be oil soaked fibers, from a previous owner(s) instance on slathering on the oil before reassembling. The oil would need to come out. Many ways to do that, most would require refinishing. You may try taping over one side, and using an eyedropper to fill the holes with acetone. It will pull oil out as it evaporates. If it's really bad, it will need a soak (in a solvent like acetone). For stocks that need such treatment with no other workaround, I have found I'm able to bring back an original looking finish, either fulling refinishing or blending spots, with a combination of linseed oilicon, watco danish oil (dark, light, or neutral walnut. you can mix), and a home-made "red-oil". The red oil is made with alkanet root (look online for a jar already in powder form) soaked in linseed oilicon for a month or more, and blending carefully can create the color of linseed oil that has oxidized over decades (or centuries). Any soak in solvent will likely expand the wood, and you might find yourself back in business with nothing else required
2) Rot might just be rot. I've used this before in other projects to stop the decay. https://www.homedepot.com/p/3M-8-Fl-...0131/206680616 Tape over both sides and poke a hole in the tape to prevent it going where you don't want it to, and use a dropper to saturate in the hole. The rot should soak it up like a sponge. You might find this closes the hole enough where you just need to chase it with a bit.
3) After doing (2), if the hole is still too big, I would go the route of of a small piece of aluminum tape before I would use agraglas. If going the acraglas route, dye it black. Plenty of release agent. You will only need to apply a pinhead of acraglass.