RancidSumo
Member
Do you guys oil the wood on your guns? If so, what do you use?
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Oiling the stock.
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On the ones with an oil finish, I do. I have some old milsurps and an old Model 94 with oil finishes. I rub some Boiled Linseed Oil into the the wood, let it dry for a week and then buff it out. I'll do 2-3 coats and do it every year or every other year.
Brian Dale
Member
I use tung oil, then a mixture of tung oil and beeswax. You can get pure tung oil from Lauer Custom Weaponry (the Dura-Coat people). It isn't cheap but you don't need a huge amount of it. My aunt recently told me that she believed that she'd seen it in a craft store. Lauer has it at their web site.
If need be, I'd use Minwax or Valspar brands of Tung Oil Finish. I'd use the Behr brand if they still made theirs. I believe that these are not pure tung oil but oil and varnish blends. I don't use Formby's TOF; I've read that Formby's is a wiping varnish without any actual tung oil in it. In any case, there aren't a lot of emergency refinishing projects that keep me from using the real stuff.
You know how we shooters say, "Eyes and ears, always?"
With solvents, and with potential irritants and sensitizers, it's "protect your eyes, skin and lungs...Always!"
Starting from wood with no surface finish, or for a milsurp with as much cosmoline removed as possible, I use tung oil thinned with odorless mineral spirits for the first few coats. You probably won't need to start with thinned tung oil if your stock already has an oil finish.
I start with 20% to 25% tung oil, then one third, then 50%, then 75% tung oil. I let each coat dry for about a day, lightly sand it or use steel wool if that's appropriate, then go over it with a tack cloth and put on the next coat. Here's the usual reminder not to sand cartouches or other things of historical significance. Get a lot of oil on the end grain at the butt, the wrist and the fore-end and let it soak in.
If you're using sandpaper or steel wool, don't use papers finer than about 150 to 180 for the early coats. You want the oil to soak in, so you don't want to close any grain at the surface yet. If your rifle already has a high polish, then don't worry about what I just wrote. This is like making tasty chocolate chip cookies, not a fussy, elaborate souffle.
Next, I use a couple of coats of pure tung oil, let each dry, then sand and use tack cloth as above. I put lots of tung oil into the bedding area of a rifle or shotgun stock. Like linseed oil, it forms a polymer as it cures in air; this helps the stock to resist moisture absorption.
Finally, I rub in a mixture of 1/3 tung oil, 1/3 beeswax and 1/3 turpentine.
Dick Culver posted this idea years ago, I believe at his own site; he used boiled linseed oil in his mixture. He wrote that he'd learned it at Camp Perry in the 1950s from an old gentleman (paraphrasing, now) 'who looked like he'd probably first used it on his issued Trapdoor Springfield.' At any rate, I didn't think this up myself. I've used it a lot and I like the way it looks.
First, make sure that there are no ignition sources nearby (like within the same county). Don't smoke while you do it, and don't use a gas stove. You're heating a solvent which will burn; don't give it an excuse to hurt you. Also, going more slowly means that you'll put fewer turpentine fumes into the air.
To make this stuff, heat the turpentine and tung oil in a makeshift double boiler: a saucepan with some water in it and a smaller saucepan inside of the big sauce pan. Use sauce pans that you never use for food. No, really. You'll never completely get rid of the taste and smell of turpentine and oil. Buy some sauce pans for fifty cents at the thrift store or at a garage sale.
Transfer the remaining tung oil (what's left in the can after you put some in the double boiler) into a smaller container, or (what I do) add clean marbles to the can or bottle, until you've minimized the air space. You don't want it to cure in there before you use the rest of it.
Grate the beeswax into the warm (NOT boiling) oil-and-turpentine mixture and stir it with something else that you never use on food: a thrift store spoon works, and so does a clean scrap of wood. You are not in a hurry; let the beeswax melt slowly and dissolve thoroughly in the liquid. A couple of centuries ago, furniture makers would just let beeswax dissolve overnight in a jar of turpentine. You don't have to force it.
Once everything has dissolved in everything else, it's useful to pour the mixture into an old Johnson's Wax can, or a jalapeno & cheese chip dip can, or any other metal can with a tight-fitting lid. Let it cool and harden, then scoop it out to use it, just like Johnson's Wax. If you get eager and scald yourself, it's because you forgot that I posted the following: it's hotter than it looks, it will stick to you and burns are more nuisance than the worth of the time that you tried to save.
When it's cool, rub it on the stock. Rub it in, buff it, fondle it if you want. You'll find that the wood develops a soft glow. It won't be sticky, or even tacky, but it might feel slightly "grippy." That will disappear in time. Give the stock another coat in a day or so, just for good measure.
Put a coat of your oil and beeswax mixture on the stock every year or so after that, or more often if it sees hard use. If your stock gets dirty, you can wipe it down with mineral spirits to get the dirt off. It'll strip wax but it won't remove the original coats of tung oil. They became polymerized shortly after you applied them to the stock. Use the mixture on scrapes or scratches.
If you want to, you can use oil and beeswax right on top of an existing oil finish, too.
If need be, I'd use Minwax or Valspar brands of Tung Oil Finish. I'd use the Behr brand if they still made theirs. I believe that these are not pure tung oil but oil and varnish blends. I don't use Formby's TOF; I've read that Formby's is a wiping varnish without any actual tung oil in it. In any case, there aren't a lot of emergency refinishing projects that keep me from using the real stuff.
You know how we shooters say, "Eyes and ears, always?"
With solvents, and with potential irritants and sensitizers, it's "protect your eyes, skin and lungs...Always!"
Starting from wood with no surface finish, or for a milsurp with as much cosmoline removed as possible, I use tung oil thinned with odorless mineral spirits for the first few coats. You probably won't need to start with thinned tung oil if your stock already has an oil finish.
I start with 20% to 25% tung oil, then one third, then 50%, then 75% tung oil. I let each coat dry for about a day, lightly sand it or use steel wool if that's appropriate, then go over it with a tack cloth and put on the next coat. Here's the usual reminder not to sand cartouches or other things of historical significance. Get a lot of oil on the end grain at the butt, the wrist and the fore-end and let it soak in.
If you're using sandpaper or steel wool, don't use papers finer than about 150 to 180 for the early coats. You want the oil to soak in, so you don't want to close any grain at the surface yet. If your rifle already has a high polish, then don't worry about what I just wrote. This is like making tasty chocolate chip cookies, not a fussy, elaborate souffle.
Next, I use a couple of coats of pure tung oil, let each dry, then sand and use tack cloth as above. I put lots of tung oil into the bedding area of a rifle or shotgun stock. Like linseed oil, it forms a polymer as it cures in air; this helps the stock to resist moisture absorption.
Finally, I rub in a mixture of 1/3 tung oil, 1/3 beeswax and 1/3 turpentine.
Dick Culver posted this idea years ago, I believe at his own site; he used boiled linseed oil in his mixture. He wrote that he'd learned it at Camp Perry in the 1950s from an old gentleman (paraphrasing, now) 'who looked like he'd probably first used it on his issued Trapdoor Springfield.' At any rate, I didn't think this up myself. I've used it a lot and I like the way it looks.
First, make sure that there are no ignition sources nearby (like within the same county). Don't smoke while you do it, and don't use a gas stove. You're heating a solvent which will burn; don't give it an excuse to hurt you. Also, going more slowly means that you'll put fewer turpentine fumes into the air.
To make this stuff, heat the turpentine and tung oil in a makeshift double boiler: a saucepan with some water in it and a smaller saucepan inside of the big sauce pan. Use sauce pans that you never use for food. No, really. You'll never completely get rid of the taste and smell of turpentine and oil. Buy some sauce pans for fifty cents at the thrift store or at a garage sale.
Transfer the remaining tung oil (what's left in the can after you put some in the double boiler) into a smaller container, or (what I do) add clean marbles to the can or bottle, until you've minimized the air space. You don't want it to cure in there before you use the rest of it.
Grate the beeswax into the warm (NOT boiling) oil-and-turpentine mixture and stir it with something else that you never use on food: a thrift store spoon works, and so does a clean scrap of wood. You are not in a hurry; let the beeswax melt slowly and dissolve thoroughly in the liquid. A couple of centuries ago, furniture makers would just let beeswax dissolve overnight in a jar of turpentine. You don't have to force it.
Once everything has dissolved in everything else, it's useful to pour the mixture into an old Johnson's Wax can, or a jalapeno & cheese chip dip can, or any other metal can with a tight-fitting lid. Let it cool and harden, then scoop it out to use it, just like Johnson's Wax. If you get eager and scald yourself, it's because you forgot that I posted the following: it's hotter than it looks, it will stick to you and burns are more nuisance than the worth of the time that you tried to save.
When it's cool, rub it on the stock. Rub it in, buff it, fondle it if you want. You'll find that the wood develops a soft glow. It won't be sticky, or even tacky, but it might feel slightly "grippy." That will disappear in time. Give the stock another coat in a day or so, just for good measure.
Put a coat of your oil and beeswax mixture on the stock every year or so after that, or more often if it sees hard use. If your stock gets dirty, you can wipe it down with mineral spirits to get the dirt off. It'll strip wax but it won't remove the original coats of tung oil. They became polymerized shortly after you applied them to the stock. Use the mixture on scrapes or scratches.
If you want to, you can use oil and beeswax right on top of an existing oil finish, too.
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Finally, I rub in a mixture of 1/3 tung oil, 1/3 beeswax and 1/3 turpentine.
I do similar but with BLO instead of tung oil. It's great stuff.
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