Sandpaper and linseed oil...

[IndianaBoy]

And lots of elbow grease....


I had cleaned the bore and action of my Yugo Mauser many times.

The stock retained that 'sticky' feeling of cosmoline and had little globs of it in places. When I took the stock off, I was amazed at the quantity of goo in the rifle.


It took lots of time, mineral spirits and scrubbing before I was ready to sand. And then the sandpaper kept filling up with cosmoline laden sawdust. The stock was too big to put in my oven to cook the cosmoline out.

Evevntually I got it to a point where it was smooth enough and cleaned enough to refinish. Instead of high gloss stains and clear coats I decided to use an old fashioned method.


Several coats of hand rubbed boiled linseed oil, with a light sanding between some of the coats.


The visible finish really isn't starkly different, but if you handle the rifle.. it is night and day.


The wood now feels smooth and robust. The cosmoline made if feel sticky and soft. I didn't want to scrub off the arsenal marks, and they remained. I didn't sand a whole lot. I'm sure there is still some cosmoline in the wood. But it looks and feels (and smells) a lot better now.








It was nice to get all the wood furniture off. The simplicity of these rifles is refreshing. The trigger is composed of two pieces of metal and a spring. It got a lot better without all that goo in there too. Still heavy and creepy, but it is a battle rifle. Overall I am pleased. I have enough linseed oil and mineral spirits to clean up dozens more rifles..... Time for a C and R license?

 

[transformerguru]

Looks Good!!!! Gratz!

 

[45Badger]

Very nice. How many hours did it take to get it that way?

 

[IndianaBoy]

It took about 3 or 4 hours of prepping the stock. Scraping hardened cosmoline out of hard to reach corners.... and then sanding the stock. The first hour of sanding I was just filling the sandpaper with comsoline goo and a little bit of sawdust. Once I finally got to a little wood, it went much faster.


Applying the linseed oil was the easy part. Sanding in the little corners was the hard part.

 

[WinchesterAA]

my m44's story is the same and I was just thinking about refinishing it.. I also enjoy the idea of a from scratch DIY job.

I think I might try your method, can you give me some preparation details for the linseed and where to get it?

 

[IndianaBoy]

You can get the linseed oil ready to apply from a hardware store.

I got mine at a Lowes, since the smaller shops where closed while I was shopping.

Just rub on a generous amount with a soft dry cloth, let it soak in for 5 to 10 minutes, and wipe off the excess.


Gently sand between coats after you let it dry.

 

[WinchesterAA]

cool, hope mine turns out as well as yours did.

 

[Myles]

Good job. A hand-rubbed linseed finish has always been my favorite.

I've done several over the years, and have found that using steel wool (0-0000 gradually) gives a great finish as well. I've got one that I'm very proud of. After about 2 weeks of work (say 40 hours), the wood surface developed a hard, glassy gloss and still shows depth in the grain. It's held up now for over 15 years and still shows a bright polish.

Oh, also one minor piece of advice. While not common, linseed oil soaked paper or rags can indeed spontaneously combust. Store the used rags in an old paint can just to be safe.

 

[SSN Vet]

nice job....

looks great!

 

[strat81]

Looks fantastic!

For those looking to do this, VERY hot water helps get some of the cosmoline out and raises dings and bumps at the same time. Formby's Furniture Restorer also helps with some of the nasty stuff. I used it on my Garand stock with good results. Not sure what's in it, but it smells like mineral spirits and acetone.

 

[Coronach]

The trigger is composed of two pieces of metal and a spring. It got a lot better without all that goo in there too. Still heavy and creepy, but it is a battle rifle.

If you want to add a bit of complexity to the rifle and get a better trigger, try a Huber Concepts trigger. The best part is that it is drop-in, with no permanent mods the the gun (you may have to remove a small amount of material from the interior of the stock, but that's it, and it's not visible once the rifle is assembled).

Mike

 

[jkingrph]

Did pretty much the same with mine, an elm stock, now has a nice satin glow and very smooth. Before I started it had some rough spots that were hard on the hands. I also added one of the Hueber triggers which helped a lot and is not noticible except on close examination. I worked out a recess under the buttplate with some small carving tools and have the original trigger stored there.

 

[Mark whiz]

Nice Job!!

I refinished an old stock a couple years ago with the Linseed Oil / Tung Oil finish and it came out great. You can go to this link and look at the 2 albums as I took step by step pictures of how it worked out. If you read the captions you can pretty much figure out the proceedure I used. It took some time to get thru it all, but the finished product was worth it.

http://community.webshots.com/user/markwhiz

 

[Omaney]

Even better than steel wool is bronze wool. It tends to stay together leaving less metal splinters. I found it at a "good" neighborhood hardware store. great looking finish on the yugo.

 

[Gator]

Good job! I used to use steel wool after the sandpaper, for that extra smooth finish But I got some bronze wool for the next one...all those little steel threads were a pain! Just FYI, I also use a 50/50 mix of BLO and mineral spirits, it soaks in better.

 

[eng23ine]

A quick wipedown with oven cleaner will dissolve the old cosmo FAST
(wear gloves).

I used this method to strip my Yugo sks, followed by some sanding and around 8 coats of BLO.

 

[dagger dog]

INBOY ,

nice job, and it don't stick to your hands any more does it?

the one i did , i used gasoline then naptha, that got about 60% then another 2-3 hours with a heat gun and rags, every time you would warm it up the deeply imbedded oil would come bubbling up like french fry grease!

i bet they dropped whole rifles in vats of cosmoline, and no telling how many cans of rifle lube those old stocks have soaked up. man some are really a mess. but they sure do look purty after your done!