Refinishing #5 MK1 forend

fat tony

fat tony

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I got this #5 MKI, I think the forend is soaked in oil, kind of dirty in the barrel channel and I think there is some heavy dried up grease or Cosmolene there as well. When I rub the forend with a clean rag it comes out yellowish and slightly oily, I read somewhere you wipe off as much of the grease as possible, leach the oil and crap out of the wood with paint thinner or acetone, wash the wood with soap and water and refinish with linseed oil, for one thing I don't know how exactly to leach the oil out with acetone, I guess you would put it in a bag with the forend or something like that and let it sit for a while? :confused: Best regards Tony.
 
I had a lot of cosmoline on a M1 stock, to remove it , I set it in the sun on newspaper and when it was warm and the oils were oozing out I wiped it clean and turned it over, waited and repeated. It took about 2 days of doing this until there was no more oil oozing from the wood. This was to remove the cosmoline that white gas and paint thinners couldn't remove. It had to be sweated out of the wood. Goto www.surplusrifle.com they have lots of info on removing cosmoline and oils from Mil surplus rifle.
 
If you check surplusrifle.com, they have articles on cosmoline, if that's what you're dealing with. Myself, I cleaned up an infamous Norinco chu wood stock for my M14 by using my pressure washer connected to hot water and giviing it a serious washing about three times, with some leeching time in the sun in between.
 
Get a large foil roasting pan. Put the forestock in it and cover with varsol. Leave it there for 24 hours. Then put on some BLO, not pure linseed oil.
Do not dump the resulting sludge down any drain. Cosmoline is petroleum based and is toxic.
 
Well I'm still at it, I decided to experiment with the heat, I find I can get away with about 200-225 degrees fahrenheit before it starts sizzling which I think is bad. After last night I finally gave up on wiping it off every 15 minutes and just wrapped it up in paper towels and held it sort of in contact with the wood with dental floss. If it melts I don't care, shouldn't melt it anways I think but we'll see. I'm just going to leave it in there all night, I filled the lightening slots in the barrel channel and the magazine opening with serviettes too. Also put some aluminum foil on the level below the wood just in case. best regards Tony
 
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