Beretta Oil Finish - What to use

OldSavage

OldSavage

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I have a Beretta Silver Pigeon V with an oil finished stock. The stock appears to be drying out and I am wondering what type of oil I should use to apply a new coat?

Tongue Oil?
Boiled Linseed Oil?

What do you guys think?
 
I have used a concoction of Pure Turpentine, Beeswax & Boiled Linseed Oil
on my oil-finished guns for years.
A 10 year old DT-10 looks better now than it did when new.

"Tongue Oil" ... I always thought was the dark rum I like so much ;)
but Tung Oil is something else again. Some swear by Lee Valley's
polymerized Tung Oil as a stock finish ... but no experiance at my end.

Others have had good luck with Birchwood Casey's "Tru-Oil". I wqould dilute
it a little with mineral spirits to "slow it down" a little. It gets tacky a little
too quick for my liking.
 
The Lee Valley Tung oil will build up a finish faster as it leaves more material per application. If you want the stock to become shinier with each application then the LV Tung oil would be superb.

Boiled linseed will also work well and won't add to the finish as quickly.

In both cases since you are just wanting to do a maintainence coat I would thin the oil with some mineral spirits to two parts oil to one part spirits. Then apply with a a rubdown using 0000 steel wool to burnish the finish at the same time you're applying the oil. This will aid in removing any waxes and skin oil buildup that is on the wood and allow the tung or linseed oil to get in deeper. For doing any checkering scrub the oil in with a toothbrush to aid the cleaning power of the oil and spirits. Let sit wet for about 5 minutes and then wipe off briskly with old disposable rags or paper towels to remove the excess.

WIth oil finishes they do age and go dull rather than "dry out". And overall they are vulnerable to wear from handling and exposure. The old wood finisher's story on oil finishes is that it takes a lifetime to apply a good oil finish to a piece of furniture. Once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year and once a year for the rest of your life. So it's not unreasonable to give your stocks a refreshing coat such as this once every 8 months to a year.

And if you follow up the recoat about a week to 10 days later with a light application of furniture paste was such as Minwax your stock will be that little extra protected, shine with a nice warm internal glow and dull again less quickly between the periodic recoatings.

I'm not a fan of beeswax either mixed in with the oil or applied after. Beeswax is very soft and as a result it will hold skin oils and dirt more readily. It'll also feel slightly sticky for a long time for this same reason.
 
I would be careful with some of the suggestions posted here. The oil finish that you see drying out on your Berreta is nothing like the polimerized oil finishes suggested here. The thin oil used on these older guns absorbs into the wood and leaves very little surface finish, it would require very many coats to see any aprecciable surface buildup. I do not believe that Linseed was used in these guns and I would go for a thinner danish type oil that I suggest you rub in very well, do not leave a surface film but simply "wet" the stock. If you over do it then going whole hog with a built up finish will be your only salvation because the stock will start to show spotting from the oil filling up the pores, this is another can of worms altogether. So go thin, rub in and no surface built up, make shure you wipe off the surface oil.
IMO
bigbull
 
I would use Shaftol (or Shaftoil) spelling? Available at Bits and Pieces

Many Euro gun makers use this fine oil for their oil finishes - I use ALL the time and love it. It moisturizes and if applied enough times and rubbed well - produces the finest glowing wood ever
 
Wow what to do? This is the pride of my fleet so to speak and I just want the girl to stay as pretty as it was the day I bought it.

I'm not looking for a gloss finish, but rather something matte as was on the gun when I bought it.

I don't mind having to reapply finish to the gun as it gives me an excuse to break it out of the safe.

Thanks guys
 
Schaftol: good stuff for true Euro oil finishes, available in clear, dark brown and red tints from Bits of pieces.
 
OldSavage said:
Wow what to do? This is the pride of my fleet so to speak and I just want the girl to stay as pretty as it was the day I bought it.

I'm not looking for a gloss finish, but rather something matte as was on the gun when I bought it.

I don't mind having to reapply finish to the gun as it gives me an excuse to break it out of the safe.

Thanks guys
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Well, this will sound like herasy to us "know it alls" but why not start by sending off an email to Beretta with your pride and joy's serial number and ask them if they can recomend a coating to use.

Having said this I've found that with soak in style finishes the follow up stuff such as suggested in pretty much all of the posts is not going to ruin your stock at all. From the danish oil (almost more a form of very thin varnish) to straight tung or boiled linseed to the tung/boiled linseed combo thinned or not. They will all do the job of soaking in cleaning out the grain pores while feeding the existing finish and allow themselves to have the excess wiped off. Nothing suggested so far will be "bad" for your stock as they are all very mild in their solvent like properties and will not attack anything that is already in the wood. They will just soak in alongside or past what is already there.

The thinned options will allow for deeper penetration and be easier to wipe away the excess. And with any of these you want to briskly wipe away the excess. That's key to avoiding a sticky looking and feeling mess. You can't overdo the wiping away thing. After the 5 minute wet soak rub hard and change paper towels or cloths often to wipe away as much as you can.

My own cowboy action Baikal stock has been out in a couple of rainy days so far this season. Poor timing on the organizer's part... :D The tung/boiled linseed/thinned with mineral spirits finish I put on last year just barely started to look a little strained and dull after the second rainy day where it came down quite a bit heavier. I let it dry overnight and put on my yearly re-coat and buffed it off after the 5 minutes and she's looking pristine again. This cheap piece of junk russian wood is actually the nicest looking stock in my collection bar one other at this point thanks to the 5 coats last year plus one this year finish. The others except for one are all finished with that nasty tinted lacquer.
 
Any furniture oil would work. Orange Oil, even Pledge. Its all you need. If you want more protection, throw on a coat of furniture wax. Keep it out of the checkering. Stay away from the any of the stuff with a sealant built in. .

R
 
Rman said:
Any furniture oil would work. Orange Oil, even Pledge. Its all you need. If you want more protection, throw on a coat of furniture wax. Keep it out of the checkering. Stay away from the any of the stuff with a sealant built in. .

R
Click to expand...

Sorry but this is not good stuff to use on oil finished stocks. Pledge and lemon oil are for cleaning varnished surfaces where you can wipe away all the oil. If used on a pourous surface they will remain oilly rather than drying like tung oil and boiled linseed oil will do.
 
I've done some raw wood projects using the 50-50 mix of tung and boiled linseed thinned with a little mineral spirits already mentioned. It'll take you around 4 to 5 coats to build to a nice finish due to the wiping off of most of it for each coat. But the wood will have a wonderous look to it once it's done if you do it right and don't try to cheat by leaving the coats thicker.

The first coat will take a few days to dry and polymerize to being hard enough to recoat. Or less if you can perch it in the sun where it'll get some warmth and UV light will speed things along. After that the second will dry a little quicker and the third will be no more than 24 hours to dry well enough.

After the first coat wet sand it with fine grit wetordry paper using the tung/linseed/spirits mix as the wetting agent. Then wipe off the excess briskly. After this second coat is dry all following coats should be applied using some 0000 steel wool wetted down with the oil mix and with some brisk rubbing of the wool. After the typical couple of minutes wipe off the excess so it' just barely looks damp. That's all you want to leave for each coat. And it takes a pretty decent rub down to get to that point. You don't need to rub it away until a paper towel comes away looking totally clean. Just to where it has a hint of the oil showing on it.

It's a slow process but somewhere around the 4 coat it's going to be looking darned nice. And 5 will look sweet. Going up to 7 will begin to bring up a noticable shine. The shine will dull after a few months to a year depending on how much use it gets but the annual feeding coat will spruce things up and add to the depth of the finish over the years.
 
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