Thanks Maple_Leaf_Eh, not sure I deserve that much praises
Frost actually contacted me earlier tonight and I replied to him before realizing there was a thread here. Hey, why not throw my reply here for discussion purposes!
Here goes, shortened a bit so I won't bore you to death!
Hi Frost,
Well, first off congrats on a fine choice for a hobby.
Second, I hope I can help; I'm no expert, but if I can share some of my experience with others, then great.
What I would do is, first, reverse your actions somewhat. You need to strip the wood of all traces of oil. So, sadly, the tung oil will have to be removed. Now, I see this as a good thing, because, well, tung oil shouldn't go on a Lee Enfield. Only pure linseed oil should be coming near these rifles.
Now, how to remove the oil that's seeping deeper and deeper into the wood as you read these lines? Hopefully it's still somewhat fresh, that'll make it easier.
Get some furniture stripper at your nearest hardware store. I use some furniture stripper from Canadian Tire; the brand I have here is called "Heirloom Furniture Stripper". I would do two or even three treatments to get as much oil as possible out of the wood. Otherwise, the stain will not go into the wood and after that it'll come out when the oil is applied, and it'll look aweful and you'll swear and your wife will not be proud etc.
Now, I think that if I had a piece recently oiled I would also do a brake cleaner treatment after the wood stripper. Essentially I'd almost empty one full spray can of the stuff, let it run down the wood part into my oil / gas / other nasty liquid pan and make sure I get the wood as dry as possible.
After that, the wood should take the stain.
I would buff lightly with no. 0000 steel wool, and move on to the staining.
I've had much better results with water-based stains, compared to oil-based. Some folks also use leather dye, I've never used it - maybe I should someday but I haven't found any, and water-based stains have worked very well. Still, I should find dyes someday and try that.
The stain brand I use is called "Saman", and I have quite a few bottles. I have walnut, cinamon, black, etc etc; essentially I have enough different colours to be able to mix them to get the right colour to match a wide variety of wood. Now, here, really it's a question of practice. More art than science, in a way. I really like this part of the refurb process.
Keep in mind though that even if the colour match is perfect, the wood grain will never lie; walnut grain is very different from beech or other types so this difference will always be visible.
But: if you ask an armourer who worked with Lee Enfields way back in the years (I did have this luck), he would tell you that when they worked on these rifles in the field, and one needed fixing, you'd use whatever piece of wood you had! So it is ok, in my book, to use different types of wood... even if less elegant or less "just like if it was out of the factory".
More importantly is to end up with a rifle you like and that shoots well
