Cleaning Old Wood

Mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol is where you should start.

I purchased a Winchester 67a from an estate. It looked like it had been in the basement for 60 years; covered in sticky nasties.
I started with a rag and denatured alcohol, then progressed to 0000 (4-0) steel wool and mineral spirits.
I lightly rubbed with the steel wool soaked in MS, then wiped with a rag.

It worked very well. There is still aged character in the wood, but it doesn't come off on your hands when handling.

I use some orange cleaner from Home Depot and blue shop rags then rub them down with a hardwood dowel to smooth them out before using real tung oil to protect,, this was done to milsurps

Maybe @GunnyUSMC will be along with some advice. He's one of the resident experts here on restoring stocks.

I clean rosewood guitar fingerboards with Murphys oil soap then a good coating of lemon oil followed by a buffing with a microfiber rag.

Mineral spirits with a tooth brush is the safest way. It won,t attack the finish. I wouldn't use alky. You don.t know what the finish is and it can desolve some like shellac. I'd stay away from water or something with oil. These can soak into open checkering and the unfinished backsides getting under the finish. Good luck.

I always like to start out with Murphy's Oil soap or some type of orange cleaner/degreaser. I have used Murphy's Oil soap successfully on old stocks that are grimy from years of handling along with some pretty nasty kitchen cabinets coated with cooking grease. I haven't messed up any wood finish yet.

And with any type of cleaner or degreaser, always test in a small less noticeable spot first.

Just a slightly damp paper towel wipe down, and a slightly damp soft toothbrush for the checkering. I use distilled water, so that it does not leave behind any water spots.

It depends if the rosewood grips have a finish on them. If they're coated with a laquer or varathane, you could clean them with any soapy cleaner.

JCooperfan1911 said:

Getting in some old rosewood factory grip panels for a revolver soon and the seller pictures show them looking kinda grimey.

What can be shed to GENTLY clean the surface of old dirty gun wood without changing the texture or appearance of the wood itself? I’d just like to clean them off a little, not refinish them.

Thanks!

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Without seeing them I can't tell you. I have cleaned and refinished many many handgun grips (stocks)

As mention mineral spirits would probably be my first choice then move on to the pressure washer!

What gun??
Rosewood varies a lot. Depends on what area it came from and has other names It is beautiful and a complete refinish is not hard to do at all.

https://www.wood-database.com/hardwoods/fabaceae/dalbergia/

Like @Rule3 said, without seeing them, it would be hard to give the best advice. If you could even post the pics from the seller, that would help.
A lot depends on the finish, or lack of finish on the grips.
Most often a light oil cleaning will remove dirt and grime, as long as it is not caked on hard. This is done by applying oil to the grips and allowing it to sit for 15 to 30 min. Then scrub with a soft brush, like and old tooth brush. Then wipe clean and dry with paper towels. For the oil, you can use BLO or Howard’s Feed-N-Wax.
This method will work with grips that are smooth, or checkered.
Here’s a set of S&W Victory grips that I bought too restore a revolver. They were cleaned with BLO.

Tom’s 1/3 Mix was used as a wax top coat to protect the grips.

^^^ Our resident wood wizard has spoken!

Wood Cleaning Article - Civilian Marksmanship Program (thecmp.org)

Cleaning grungy stocks made easy.

P5 Guy said:

Wood Cleaning Article - Civilian Marksmanship Program (thecmp.org)

Cleaning grungy stocks made easy.

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That is a good article

Just to mention, which might not matter much on gun stocks.
The MinWax and Forbmys refinisher no longer has MEK in it. It was great for tough furniture finishes varnish, shellac, etc. It doesn't work as well now.

I have found Tru Oil very easy to use and control the amount of sheen or lack there of.

If they are covered in grease, goop, and grime, I’d put them in a black plastic bag wrapped in paper towels in the sunlight on a hot sunny day and let nature sweat the crap off of them. We used to do that when buying milsurps out of crates at the gun shows. If the weather won’t cooperate, wrapping them in paper towels and baking at 275-300* for 20-30 minutes could help loosen things up followed by a good spray down with mineral spirits and a toothbrush scrubbing. Once clean I’d douse with denatured alcohol then apply with an appropriate finish.

Rule3 said:

That is a good article

Just to mention, which might not matter much on gun stocks.
The MinWax and Forbmys refinisher no longer has MEX in it. It was great for tough furniture finishes varnish, shellac, etc. It doesn't work as well now.

I have found Tru Oil very easy to use and control the amount of sheen or lack there of.

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Is that suppose to be MEK ,Methyl ethyl ketone ? I remember that was in a lot of solvents mixes.

Scooter22 said:

Is that suppose to be MEK ,Methyl ethyl ketone ? I remember that was in a lot of solvents mixes.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...ethyl-ketone&usg=AOvVaw1wMbx1sKNDNrPEqw4FEC0l

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Yes, I fixed it. Doesn't matter much for grip finishes. I recently stripped a 100 year old table. I had some of the good stuff left and it worked amazing, Ran out and any of the new strippers just don't work as well. All the good toxic stuff is gone

I have around 10 gallon cans of the Formbys with keytones. I looked after reading your post. Theres a small "Dollar Store" chain locally that gets all kinds of stuff from stores going out of business. They had cases of the Forbmys quite a few years back so I bought 4 at at $1.00 a gallon. I think I used one and have one open. Works good to remove a old crappy factory finish from the surface but doesn,t change the color or caricature of the wood.

P5 Guy said:

Wood Cleaning Article - Civilian Marksmanship Program (thecmp.org)

Cleaning grungy stocks made easy.

Click to expand...

That’s a pretty good article and I do agree with most of it. But then there’s more then one way to skin a cat and just about as many for cleaning and refinishing stocks.
Years ago I got on the CMP forum. I replied to a post on cleaning up a stock and was politely told that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
I pretty much got the cold shoulder there from the self proclaimed experts. But by reading and asking questions, I discovered that the ones that were telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, had very little experience in cleaning and refinishing military gun stocks.
I can’t count the number of rifle stocks and pistol grips I’ve cleaned up, or refinished, but it’s close to, or over 1000.
But as most of y’all know, I don’t only tell you how to do something. I break it down into steps and show you how to do it.
But you will never hear me say that I know everything or that my way of doing something is the only way. I believe that, no matter how much you know, you can always learn more.
Cleaning dirty stocks can be done in several ways. Depending on how dirty, and what is on the wood, and what the finish is, should come in to play when deciding on how to clean it. And then there’s the level of cleaning that you wish to do.
Here’s a set of 1911 grips that were on a friend’s brand new 1911A1 copy that he bought. The grips were ugly, covered in sprayed on lacquer. The finish was uneven and poor at best.
I stripped the finish off and this is what I found.
The the wood was rough and look like very little sanding had been done before the finish was applied.


All my friend had asked was that I make them look better.
Here’s what they looked like after a little TLC. The finish is BLO with Tom’s 1/3 Mix as a top coating

At the risk of sounding stupid "what is BLO?"