CZ 858 - Tung Oil Shine?

AgentFoxMulder

AgentFoxMulder

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Hey guys,

So I had a CZ 858 with a wood stock that was beach blonde in colour. I have now changed it to something a bit more appeasing to the eye.

I usually stain, then polyurethane my stocks, because I enjoy the shine it gives. On the cz858, I had the poly coming off from the heat on the hand guard and the gas cover.

So I went a new route and have started using Tung Oil for the first time. I am only my 4th or 5th application now. But each morning before I add on the next application, the wood is really dulled. Will Tung oil ever keep the stock vibrant bright colour and shiny?

These pics are what it looks like immediately after the application of tung oil. I like it. I wish it would stay that way.

Will tung oil after more applications start to look better and better? Or is there some sort of ploy/shellac/varnish/clear coat i can use on top of the tung to give it a lasting shine?? But i guess that would have defeated the whole pitn of using tung oil in the first place then. haha. well I live and learn i guess ;)

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for tung oil that's a real nice shine. is it pure tung oil, or a hybrid? your wood is now weatherproofed, touch ups are a wipe of oil a month. the grain will get richer with time. looks like beech to me, walnut comes up real nice.
 
1-trident-1 said:
for tung oil that's a real nice shine. is it pure tung oil, or a hybrid? your wood is now weatherproofed, touch ups are a wipe of oil a month. the grain will get richer with time. looks like beech to me, walnut comes up real nice.
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It is pure tung oil.

Ya it looks nice in the pics, but thats because i just added the oil a few minutes prior. But the next day, it will have lost all of that deep rich colour and the shine. I was wondering if after the 20th, application, it might start to keep its colour and shine??

I will take pics tomorrow morning to show what I mean :)
 
jsquig said:
I think the "low lustre" part on the tin kinda gives away that it wont have much shine...
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Dang, I was going to say that.

If you want a finish that is more like your wet look, slap some BLO or just Tru-oil in top of the tung. With Tru-oil the decision is often about whether you want to dull it down a bit
 
I've got some of that Circa stuff I used for specific things. But while the oil in it may be pure it's cut with a heavy amount of solvent to thin it down. So two things are slowing down your build up to the sort of sheen you want.

First off is you're not waiting long enough for the solvents in the wood to dry and for the oil to kick off and polymerize to the final hardness. So each new coat is flushing away the previous coat. If you were to set the stocks out in the sun on bright hot days you could easily get away with a coat per day. But since you're apparently doing this with the wood ON the gun that might not be a wise move.... :d

Second is that the Circa 1858 finish is so thin that building up to a glossier sheen is going to take MANY, MANY coats. A much better alternative is Lee Valley Polymerized Tung Oil finish. It is pure oil with no solvents and treated with driers to speed up the drying. But it too is going to take a week to 10 days in cooler and darker conditions to kick off and be ready for the next coating.

Tung oil changes it's odor as it kicks off. So you can let your nose indicate when it's time for the next coating. Take note of what it smells like after a rubbed on and buffed off coat. Then check it each day. When it has a notable change in the odor then it's time for the next coat.

There's a bunch of ways of doing the coating. Up to know I've always just put on the next coat with a small pad of 00 (medium) steel wool dipped in the oil and rubbed on firmly to cut off any fuzzy hairs from the previous coat. I let this soak in for a couple of minutes then briskly rub off the excess with paper towels. The amount left is allowed to cure fully to the odor change and a day more for good measure then I do it again. I get the nice medium sort of lustre I like after about 3 coats done this way.

Another way is to let the Circa oil correctly cure this time than using a couple of drops per coating and your hand rub in some Lee Valley product and spread it out very thin so the wood has an even skim of oil with no actual "wet" looking areas. It's possible to do all the wood on the gun with only two or at most three drips of oil. And in fact you do NOT want to use more than this for this method. Less is more in this case. The heat and friction of your hands used this way will spread the oil out thin enough that it does not need a rub down to soak away any excess. And it fills in the grain and creates a shinier look that much sooner.

You MIGHT be able to do the same thing with the Circa oil. But I sort of doubt it. They just use way too much solvent. And besides the solvent isn't really good for us to have in extended skin contact. So I'd suggest buying a small amount of the Lee Valley stuff.

Opening and closing the can isn't good for the oil. Each time you do it let's in the oxygen that will mess up the contents over the long term. If you buy some of the Lee Valley oil pour an ounce or so into some other short term old jam jar or similar so you only open the can once. And whatever is left from your finishing process just toss out. The can will last for many years and many projects if you do it this way. On the other hand if you open the can for each step it'll ruin it over a couple of years of use and the oil will kick in the can.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=20050&cat=1,190,42942

With the polymerized Lee Valley oil used as suggested you won't have any trouble at all building up to the sort of shine you have in the pictures. And in fact with successive rubbed on coats done with the "two drip hand rubbed" method it'll come out even shinier if that's what you want. But you really need to be patient and let it cure fully between coats. Oil finishes are not for those in a hurry.
 
No offense , OP, in what I am about to say, but that aint pure Tung oil. Its only Pure tung oil if you can take a swig and still do long division
this is pure tung oil -- about 60 bucks a litre.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=20049&cat=1,190,42942

I use the lee valley stuff. Right out of the bottle.
Pure will always dry to a flat finish, even more matt than your Circa1850 (which is still pretty good stuff, btw)
After 8 or 10 coats it goes on really thin and smooth.


Now, if you like working with TUng oil, there is a process called Polymerization, where they take pure tung oil, and heat it, then mix it with minieral spirits to make it workable-- it dries smooth and glossy like glass. And for guys like me, with NO skill, it is a joke to work with. Again, 20 or 30 coats, with some 1500 buffing in between the odd coat to keep it perfectly level, and the results are simply gorgeous. Here is the link to it
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=20050&cat=1,190,42942

I broke down and bought the Lee Valley stuff when i redid my old WIn 94. I was so pleased i did my SKS, my Mosin, and 2 enfields.. all turned out great.
Now, if you have a nice smooth (although flat) finish, then you can apply Polymerized tung oil on top of what you have once it cures up to get a glass finish.
 
Yep. That's tung oil finish. Minwax makes pure tung oil. Runs about $20 per litre.
The Lee Valley stuff, like most everything from them is over priced. Mind you, that 8 ounce bottle will go a long way. Easily finish more than one stock.
If you're getting a flat finish with pure tung oil, you're doing something wrong. Pure tung oil has to be rubbed in, with a clean lint free cloth every time, until the wood is warm to the touch, them left to dry for 24 hours. Did my M1 Carbine eons ago and it still shines. More of a sheen, but flat it ain't.
 
Pure Tung oil is an excellent finish and preservative for any wood projects. It will never be shiny or have a gloss finish. Matte is as good as it gets. I have been working on a few Garands and one has been getting a fresh rubdown every few days for the past three weeks. The oil keeps on soaking in and the colour may darken over time but it will never be flashy. As mentioned, it is easy to touch up and tung oil also cleans as it goes.

The top stock was done with tung oil, the bottom was done with boiled linseed oil. I prefer the tung oil myself.
 
You guys that are saying it never gets at least a mid level gloss have not applied enough coats or you're re-coating too soon before the previous coats have kicked off and hardened. I've had no problem with building to a nice soft semi gloss look with only 5 or 6 coats. But I wait until the odor tells me that the previous coat has kicked off properly.

And then over time the regular feeding coats that you put on once a year or more depending on exposure to weather will build to a smoother and more glossy finish. It does take a while though. And it'll never have that "dipped in plastic" look. So on that front I can certainly agree.

Here's a couple of You Tube videos on the use of the "two drops of oil hand rubbed" method.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzVdsln29o8

And another from Larry Potterfield that uses a named product. But the method shown still applies to using the thick Lee Valley polymerized tung oil straight from the can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYyAlaDYxro

Note that an oil finish is never really finished. You'll find that from handling and exposure to sun, grit and rain in normal use that over time the oil finish loses it's soft semi gloss lustre and needs to be "fed" with a light application of the same oil applied the same way. Another sign of it needing a feeder coat is when it no longer sheds rain water in beads. Once it forms a sheet of water over the wood it's past due for a feeding coat.

Before doing this I like to clean the old finish using a rag or paper towel dampened lightly with some low odor paint thinner or automotive "wax and grease remover" to remove the darker dirty skin oils and other dirt buildup. When dry I then apply the feeder coat using a small amount in the same sort of manner as Larry shows in his video. I rub a little on and into the old finish then with moderate firmness buff it so the overall gloss is evened up.

Something that hasn't been mentioned. When doing the initial work it's always best to remove the wood from the gun and ensure that the end grain and internal wood surfaces are treated as well. In particular the end grain. A good sealing of the end grain goes a long way to resisting the gun oil used on the metal from soaking into the wood and creating those dark zones we so often see where the metal meets the wood.
 
Thanks guys! You guys are awesome!

I am going to add a few more coats. I am so I going to go and buy lee valley stuff and some BLO. If not for this gun, then for my others!

Thanks for all the replies, you knowledgeable bastards :) Its much appreciated!
 
By the way, a note to FALlover on the raw tung oil. The raw stuff does eventually polymerize. But from the stuff I've used I found that it takes a few weeks or even a few months depending on exposure to sunlight and heat. Wood turnings finished in tung oil and left out on display saw the oil kick off in around 3 months in the cooler and darker winter months. But in summer the coats kick off within a few weeks if the item is out in the warmer parts of the house and where sunlight can reach it. If a newly raw tung coated item were to be left out in direct summer sunlight it would likely kick off in a few days.

As it is now recoating a few times over only 3 weeks with the raw oil means that each coating is flushing away the old coat. But what you've been getting is superb soaking in because since it doesn't cure that fast it will continue to migrate deeper into the wood. If you leave it now to kick off and cure THEN each new coat after that, if left to fully cure before the next, will tend to build up a slightly shinier finish. It'll never get to what you can achieve with boiled linseed or polymerized tung oil but it will be a little more shiny than the dead nutz dull look you have now after the new coats soak in.

Sorry if this is is old info to you. Just thought I'd pass on what I learned from using the raw tung oil on some of my wood turnings that are then used as nut bowls. Over the years they've built up a bit of a shine from something like 5 or 6 re-coats over a 10 to 15 year period. All of them are now a nice softly warm semi gloss sort of sheen from the re-coats.
 
I have been using pure Tung oil I get a Lee Valley for many years on not only gun stocks but furniture I have made as well. The best you get can best be described as a sheen. Polymerized Tung also available at Lee Valley will dry to a high gloss. Both these types dry soft and take at times months to dry up to some degree of hardness especialy the pure which never completely dries hard.
Lots of good info has been posted here, pick through it and use what is applicable. To answer your question in short you can apply an infinite amount of coats of pure tung to that stock and the best your going to get is a sheen. It will never dry to a gloss finish. For that you will have to use a modified Tung oil product.
 
I've used the Minwax Tung Oil Finish for a low gloss finish when refinishing military stocks. It contains a drying agent like most commercial Tung Oil products. 2-3 coats will give a durable military looking coat to the wood. The secret to success is to apply, let sit for 10-15 minutes and then wipe the excess off the surface. You want it to dry in the wood, not on top of the wood. Additional coats will produce a glossier finish.
 
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