Found the link:
It was Walt Kuleck and Dick Culver who posted information about tung and linseed oils, and Dick Culver posted the recipe for the beeswax mixture that I have been using. It's "Method Three" at:
http://www.jouster.com/Bulletin/refinishing.htm
There's more at:
http://www.jouster.com/Bulletin/TUNG.htm
{Edited to add: I see that Dick Culver's recipe for the beeswax mixture specifies linseed oil rather than tung oil. The second time I made a batch of it, I decided "What the heck; let's see if tung oil will work." It works just fine. Linseed oil is cheaper; tung oil cures faster (by itself, but that might not matter much in the beeswax mixture) and it smells different. Your choice. Also, if you use linseed oil, be sure to use the boiled kind, because raw linseed oil takes even longer to cure.}
I forgot about the lye in oven cleaner. I've used it on a M-N stock, but never on household furniture. It can damage wood fibers on the surface, but I'd have a hard time believing that it can penetrate the whole stock and weaken it structurally, as is implied by VG's post at the link that Jack provided (good stuff there; Thanks!). Keep in mind that I'm wrong a lot; lots of experienced crufflers have used oven cleaner, but fine furniture restorers are aghast when people use bleach or lye on antique tables and chairs. If you can get away with not using it, that's great. If you do use it, be sure to get rid of it by rinsing the stock well with hot water, then soaking it for a few minutes in a tub of hot water. I do the oven cleaner, rinse and soak routine in the bathtub (I'm not married), then scrub the tub thoroughly when I'm done.
Another poster at Jack's linked site, Swede65mm, referred to oven cleaner turning stocks black. This might -
might - be due to their having removed whiskers on the wood (or having done other "sanding") with steel wool instead of sandpaper. Walnut, like oak, has enough chemically-available tannins in the wood to react with left-behind iron particles to create black ferric or ferrous oxide. I never remember which is which; I'm talking about the kind that's hematite colored, not rust colored. Bleach or lye might make this reaction happen more strongly.
I forgot to write earlier that it's good to paint all of the inside of the stock with straight tung oil: the action-bedding part and the area where the barrel sits.
Tung oil, like linseed oil, is a "drying oil," also called a "polymerizing oil." These oils, and one other that I can't recall, actually form crosslinked chemical bonds as they cure in the presence of oxygen. This crosslinking of the molecules makes the finish tougher than if you'd used something like mineral oil. One result of this property is that your tung oil will start to cure inside the can after you've opened it. There are several solutions, all of which mean excluding or minimizing air in the container. You can move the unused oil to a smaller container each time you use it, leaving as little air space as possible. That's a nuisance, and it's hard to find perfect-size containers each time. Simpler is to drop clean marbles or small, washed pebbles into the can before you put it away, to bring the liquid level up as close as possible to the top of the can. And there's always the Yuppie way: you can fill the air space of the oil can with nitrogen or carbon dioxide from a spray can that you get at the wine store or the art store. That costs more. I use marbles.
Can you tell that I enjoy this stuff?
They are way better quailty than the Russians.
