Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Stock Finish, True Oil vs. Minwax Antique Oil

I've used both. I find that the Minwax gives just as good a finish and is easier to work with. Any opinions?

MinWax has a lot more wax and less plastic resin. I consider UV inhibitors a non-issue, but Tru-Oil has more of those.

Usually a finish that is easy to work with is making some compromise somewhere. I have never actually tested MinWax antique finish, but I know from similar stuff and knowing what is in it, that it is not very good for water resistance.

I have used both and many many more, don't like them. I use nothing but Permalyn, you can get it from brownells. Goes on by hand so you fill in all the pores. The sealer seals the pores and puts on a durable coat ( 3 or 4 coats) Then you use the finish ( 3 or 4 coats) This product is water resistant, does not crack or peel like many do and puts on a natural color. It's oil bases and very durable and becomes hard after drying. I put all my wood in a dry box to dry quickly and the smell stays in the garage not the house. It does take a lot of work for a great finish, sanding between coats(sealer coat) to fill the pores and steel wool between finish coats. This will last for the life of the firearm.

I cringe everytime I see Steel wool and stock finishing in the same sentence. Little bits of orange rust stuck in everywhere.

Look up Stika's method, it works

Std rubbed, dipped, fubared oil finish


Stika's way


and that's before the final rubout and waxing. No empty pores, no orange dots, and no 60 hours of rubbing and mucking up a pretty piece of wood.

There is no magic bullet in finishes regardless of the retoric you hear on these blogs from back yard stock makers.:)

Mostly, it is int he application, find a finish you like and one that works for you and get after it..

I used True Oil of years and I really like it, but for the last year I have been using a new product from Brownells. GunSavR in Satin..It really works well and is easy to apply and I let a piece of walnut sit on the shop roof all winter in snow etc. and it faired extremely well..I do this with most finishes. I also use True Oil Filler prior to application of GunSavR. I slop in on until the stock is bright and shiny and let it stand for 30 days and then wet sand it in circles two or three times, wipe it clean and then apply the GunSavR from the spray can, about 5 or more coats depending on the wood (it has filler in it btw) then let it cure and a week later rub it down with Rottenstone and oil. Then wax and your done.

GunSavR also comes in high gloss and you don't rub that down.

Something I see a lot is the use of steel wool, I never use it..If you take a maginfying glass and look at your finished stock you can see minute chards of steel wool in the finish and they rust in time and pop out of the finish..Anyone that has used steel wool knows it deteriates all over the object that your polishing and in the case of stock finishing you end up with it in your finish and on your stock no matter how well you rub it and its disturbs the finish in time. I use wet or dry in grits up to 400 or 600 on a stock with a sanded in egg shell luster, and up to 1200 for a high gloss stock. After a stock has cured for a month or so, then the use of steel wool probably won't hurt anything, but I still prefer rottenstone and oil at that point.

I suspect I will get some flack on this steel wool issue but I put it out only as an option, and if you disagree that is your choice, I have no problem how someone else finishes wood.

No flack from me on using steel wool. I agree with you.

Art - I was talking about using the minwax as a finish coat.Not base coats. Overtop of the slow cure epoxy. ???

I use a product called Arm-R-Seal, made by General. It is a tung oil /urethane finish, wipe on. First few coats I thin downs ome,then start using 400-600 grit wet paer on it while still wet. After about 10 coats, it looks good to me. It is awipe onfinish likeTru Oil.

I have had it on few rifles for 10+ years and it seems to hold up good. It comes in matte,satin, and gloss,but you can make it loook like an oil rubbed finished if that is your cup of tea.

http://s274.photobucket.com/albums/jj250/vmautino/

You can look at a few of thes tocks I finished with it by going to my photobucket site , posted below

Taconic
For top coats it will be just fine. It will probably not be as durable as Tru-Oil because it is waxy.
art

If you have to use steel wool don't, use bronze wool instead. If you have used it on bare wood, vacuum, blow and wipe the wood down, then look at it with a magnifying glass, you will probably still see some steel on it. Do the clean up again as above and pass a strong magnet over the wood. Some steel will still be left.

I haven't tried that exact Min Wax product but True Oil is a known product made for this application. The Min Wax wipe on poly mixed with Tung oil works well. I don't like the all in one stain/finish products, these shouldn't be used on a gun stock even a BB gun.

That's the shade tree take on it.

From what I can gather from reading these threads, after you fill the pores with epoxy or Super Glue, about the only thing left to add as a top coat to get that hand rubbed finish is some type of oil.

Is that correct? It appears that Tru-oil, Linspeed, Minwax Antique, Danish oil, and all of the others are only some type of either Linseed based or tung oil based oil, and no matter what you use, it is all going to be some type of oil with additives.

I thought of using Spar Varnish as a top coat, rubbing it in like an oil finish, or else using wiping varnish. Could anyone comment on using either of these as a top coat.

Many years ago, I saw a Custom Built Winchester Model 21. It had, to me, the nicest finish and most finish on it that I have ever seen on a gun. All of my stock finishing work has been an attempt to try and duplicate that finish but I never have been able to do it, or even come close. Anyone know how Winchester did it a long time ago?

I would think that a top coat the English use, something called Slocum or Slackum or something like that would work pretty well for a top coat. They might use it to for the entire finish, filling the pores and everything. Anyone have any ideas on this?

It has some type of oil in it, along with some other stuff.

I guess I might be sort of weird, but I like the finishes on high grade guitars and pianos. It is shiny, but I still like it. Does anyone know what type of finish is used on musical instruments?

The Model 21 finish mentioned above was similair, but not as glossy.

Yes to the first question, but some of the new products will be more durable usually a polymerized or alkyd oil varnish like permalyn and others.

Yes polymerized oils, but some like the Antique finish have waxes added which fill quicker and usually have a satin finish as applied but the wax slightly reduces the hardness and durability ( it increases water resistance).

Spar will work but a spar/oil mix is more traditional and will scratch and chip less. Also the oil spar mix is easier to refinish as straight spar has to be taken back to the wood if allowed to go too far. The mix is a wipe on process while straight spar is brush on and requires the best brushes available.

I have used both poly or spar, plus oil, plus turpentine and like the results. I like the mix better for the durability and more traditional look, plus easy refinishing.

Not sure on the 21 but an old method was to fill with varnish or shellac then hand rubbed oil then rotten stone. Some show pieces received a french polish but this is only good for wall hangers.

I think the slackum was a varnish/oil or oil shellac/mix. A long oil varnish. Might also have bees wax, Venice turpentine, burnt umber, Alkanet, bone black or any number of secret ingredients.

Older musical instruments would have "fossil varnish" aka violin varnish, nitro-lacquer, or french polish. Newer ones could have any number of lacquer, synthetic polymers, epoxy finishes or alkyd varnishes. None of these alone are ideal gun stock finishes.

The only way to find out is doing test pieces ideally from the same piece of wood. You could hand rub the epoxy and use buffing compound like what was used on the older weatherby stocks, but the top coat protects the epoxy and reduces the tendency for cracking or crazing that occurs with older epoxy only finishes.

Any of the harder finishes can be buffed to a high gloss.

Next Claro walnut one I do will be 1st 1-3 coats red oil to pop the grain, then epoxy filler 1-2 coats thinned with acetone, then oil/varnish mix with final coats of oil if needed to get a traditional look.

Just did a guitar neck with super glue (CA) and I won't do that again unless I have a full canister type breathing system. I prefer my poison to be aged in oak casks, preferably from Scotland.

Tejano:

Thanks for the information. I have never tried finishing a stock with Super Glue, but I make Pens.

I finish them with about 10 coats of thin CA, with the lathe running, sanding between each coat with about 1200 grit paper used dry. Water and CA doesn't mix. I have tried using the paper wet, but no matter how careful I am about removing the moisture between coats, the CA will either not stick or will take on a foggy appeareance.

Below is one finished using this method. There is no oil or anything else on top of the CA, but I do polish it with Turtle Wax buffing compound in the Green can, again with the lathe running.

For use on a writing instrument, which will be handled a lot with dirty, sweaty hands, I think the CA makes for a very durable finish.

The wood is some type of burl, Box Elder, I think that was dyed red as a blank.

On the gun stock, I would use epoxy to fill the pores, as Sitka Deer advises, so I wouldn't need the filling properties of the Antique finishes.

Nice pen. I have heard of using BLO with the CA glue finish both before and after the CA, it seems to bring the grain out and lubricates when polishing. CA glue is about the only thing that will stick to something with uncured linseed oil on it.

The fumes were so bad it turned me away from using as a finish, but can't beat it for rough duty use. It's ideal for pens and knife or pistol handles.

Tejano
Never understood the concept of using oil to "pop" a finish. I have heard it many times from many folks and have yet to see anything like "popping" on test blocks.

Adding stain to bring out color is another thing entirely and I avoid it. I like wood to look like the wood it was supposed to be.

I would also avoid using oil under epoxy. The oil will reduce the penetration of the epoxy and that is not a benefit in my mind. The epoxy adds quite a lot of dent resistence to the wood.

The standard finish to seal uncured/uncurable oils is a coat of shellac. Not the best for stocks, but it does stop the bleeding through.

Linseed and tung oil are virtually identical. There is not enough difference between the two to be worth worrying about. Oil finish manufacturers (blenders, actually) use them interchangably without anyone knowing the difference. Even "Tung Oil" finishes are routinely made with linseed oil.
art

Some penmakers use BLO to 'pop the grain,' but I have never tried it. From pictures, I can't see that it makes all that much difference, although the blanks pen makers use are mostly really fancy stuff, much more fancy than gun stocks.

One reason being is that it is easier to find a very fancy burl pen blank small enough to make a pen than it is to find a fancy piece large enough to make a gun stock.

Very few pen makers use walnut, even fancy English walnut. The reason is that the blank is so small, there is not enough material for the really nice grain to be apparent, like there is on the butt stock of a rifle or shotgun.

Walnut does really nice in smaller projects. All finished with CA. Everyone has their own recipie and flavor for doing things, and alot of them work well. I sat down one day, did some test blocks on a failed jewelery box, and found Stika's method to be the most waterproof, the most stable, and the easiest to repair if scuffed.

Beautiful Bowls.... I especially like the birds eye ones.

Sitka: Re. oil no oil,
Look at the photos of Savage2005's stock, To me the grain is a lot warmer and richer on the top photo. If it didn't have the steel wool rust that would be the one I would like better. The lower photo looks more finished and no doubt it will wear well.

What I am looking for is to combine the two if possible.

What Ray said is really true. Find out what works for you and go after it. You already have, but what works for you might not for the next guy.

I saw a really nice looking stock finished with egg whites and rubbed with lemon peels. I would be afraid a Bear or Porky Pine would take a liking to it and gnaw my stock into kindling with that method.

See to me, the top photo looks Foggy and dull. Warm isn't exactly what I'd call it. You can always knock the gloss down.