What kind of oil?

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Uplandguy

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All,

I have a few old guns with solid internals but suffering wood. I want to restore the wood, and I am starting with an old Baikal 20g which is worth nothing, but which has killed many a rabbit. I am removing the finish with steel wool. I am trying to determine which oil is best for which Finish. I prefer a deep lustre (think bps or wingmaster). I have heard I should use tru oil or linseed or tung. I am doing this restoration by hand and I have lots of patience. If it matters I live in an arid region and spend lots of time in thick cover. What oil will give me a nice shine, but also a little durability to the Finish?



Thanks experts!
 
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Your correct using the tung, linseed, or tru oil finishes. I think if you want a nice shine, many coats of Tung oil will work. Ive never use Tru oil so I don't know how shiny it will get. Make sure the Tung oil dries well between coats or else it gets sticky to touch.
 
For me Tru-oil is the best. How shiny is dependent on how many coats. The secret I find is to strip and use a fine sandpaper and then steel wool to prep the wood and then let each coat dry well and use the steel wool between every application to give a good surface for the next coat to grab. Gives a nice durable finish for real world use.
 
Many moons ago, I decided to redo the sporterized stock on a LE #4 Mk1 I got pretty cheap. It was varnished maple wood with lots of flakes and scratches in the finish.
I spent a whole winter refinishing it, and it turned out drop dead gorgeous (at least to my eyes).
I chemically stripped it bare, lightly sanded it and washed it with alcohol. Then I gave it a dark oak stain to subdue that bright blond maple colour.
Now herein lies the rub. Literally. Week after week. With old rags.
I started with a 50/50 mix of double boiled linseed oil and turpentine and rubbed it in about every other day for the first couple of weeks.
Once the wood stopped looking so thirsty, I went to straight linseed twice a week, then once a week, then every other week for the rest of the winter.
Reassembled in spring, it looked great and, being an open pore finish, would soak up bangs, bumps, and other sundry abuse without complaint.
Since then, all I did was wipe it with the same oil I used on the rest of the rifle whenever I cleaned it.
30 years later, it still looks gorgeous.
I'm thinking of doing the same to my factory mint (well almost - I did fire 15 rounds through it) 1950 Tula SKS safe queen just for sh!ts & giggles.
 
soleman said:
For me Tru-oil is the best. How shiny is dependent on how many coats. The secret I find is to strip and use a fine sandpaper and then steel wool to prep the wood and then let each coat dry well and use the steel wool between every application to give a good surface for the next coat to grab. Gives a nice durable finish for real world use.
Click to expand...

I've used it on some antique furniture with great results
 
First off is the wood around the ends stained by oil from the metal? Like dark bands at the interface?

If so you'll want to use a good degreaser to remove as much of that non drying metal oil first before you apply a finish.

There are a number of ways of doing this but one of the better ones is/was K2R "spot remover" used as directed and given some time with a hotter hair dryer or even a heat gun applied to the white powder after it dries to encourage the oil to leach out of the wood and into the powder. Wipe away as it becomes obviously oil stained and re-apply. Keep going until no more comes out. This isn't a fast process. You're looking at a week or more and some patience.

If you can't find K2R around your area you can make up your own version using corn starch and acetone. Make up a brushable paste that is about the consistency of cream and apply thickly to the end grain of the wood wherever it's dark from the gun oil.

When you have worked out as much as you can wash the wood down with a LIBERAL use of acetone or lacquer thinner or hose it down with a good part of a can of brake cleaner to remove oil from the surface of the end grain. Leave it for 24 hours and if it goes dark flush it again. Repeat until it no longer goes dark from oil coming up from below.

If you don't have this oil staining around the metal to wood joints you can skip all of the above.

So.... you want a "wood under glass" look, eh? Then oil finishing isn't for you. Your choice should be one of the oil based polyurethane finishes. Or you could even do a LIGHT sort of stain and grain filler prep work and after a suitable curing and aging time get a local car shop to clear coat it with automotive clear top coat for the toughest clear "wood under glass" finish you can get outside of a factory.

Me? I hate that look. But if that's what you want then these two options are two of what I feel are the better routes to follow. Finishing oils are simply not going to give you that same look as you see on Browning and other similar wood stocks that look like they have dozens of clear coats and then are rubbed out to look like wood under a layer of glass.
 
Thank you all for your experience, I really appreciate it. What a great bunch of folks. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tim
 
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