Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Linseed Oil

I've done a fair amount of furniture work before, but I've never finished a stock, and I am redoing the basicly sound stock of my Turkish Mauser. Yeah, it'll look like a refinished milsurp stock when I'm done, but you gotta start somewhere. My question to those who have used Linseed oil is do you cut it with mineral spirits for better penetration when using it on a stock, or just straight?

Youper,<P>I would reconsider the Linseed Oil. Pick up some TruOil from Brownells, or even some Tung Oil at your local hardware store. Either of these will give you a good finish with a little effort on your part and the result will be better than linseed oil. Just sand lightly between each coat, and watch for runs. <P>Linseed oil, in my experience, never really dries well. If you insist on using it, you can cut the first coat 50/50 with mineral spirits, and then put the second and third coats on full strength. <P>------------------<BR>Stush

Varathane 66, comes in a gold can, very thin, very easy to apply, looks like the military finish for several coats, but can be built up, if you desire. Two or three coats will do wonders and will look like an oil finish. Put it on heavy, wait a few minutes, wipe it as dry as you can.<P>All of the oil finishes will do nothing but shrink and require new oil, all the time. If you like putting on oil, do the 66 first, then add dry-rubbed coats as often as you like.<P>Do not buy a big can of the stuff because it only has a shelf life of about 6 months. A little can goes a long way.<BR>art<P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Youper, I've touched up/refinished many a milsurp stock with this simple formula; two parts boiled linseed oil, one part turpentine. You will need to shake vigorously each time you use it. This mixture will penetrate, be compatable with the old oils deep in the wood already, dry with-in 36 hours, and bring that old luster back to the wood. Unlike some commercial finishes, this mixture does not seal the wood, which is the way milsurps are normally finished, especially US wood stock rifles. I got this formula from an old Marine Corps gunsmith a number of years ago, he had been using it for many years. Odessa

I had thought about the tung oil, that is what I prefer for interior finishes, but I had speculated the linseed would work better for outdoor items. The local gun store had TruOil, but it was in a spray can. Does it also come as a liquid?<BR>I'll have to look into the Varathane 66. I hadn't heard of it before.<BR>

All oils are hydrophilic and suck water out of the air. In controled tests, tung oil or linseed oil finished pieces of wood will pick up weight (moisture from the air) faster than raw wood. The 66 will put a small amount of plastic in the wood, which will slow that, and allow an oil finish over the top to look like it is just oil.<P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Youper:<BR> <BR>From A Troll!<P>Sitka is right about Linseed oil and Tung oil being hydroscopic. The major difference is that Tung oil IS a little more waterproof than linseed oil and will not darken the stock as much as linseed oil. Linseed oil in its natural state has a water content of about 6% if I remember right. Now if you boil it you get all the H2O out right?(BLO) Package it, take it home open the can and leave it open and guess what after a couple of hours ....6% water.My guess is that the Tung oil you've been buying up there in the UP, whether it say's Formby's or Minwax or Hope's has somewhere in the title the word 'finish'. If it does you can count your apples it's more varnish than Tung oil. If you want pure Tung oil, Brownell's has it And I have found it at some Pratt & Lambert Paint stores. The standard mix, if you want to duplicate the military look is a 50/50 mix with turpentine and additionally if you can find it, melt a little beeswax in a double boiler and add that to the mix. This will make it a little more waterproof. The Varethane finish is an excellent all-round finish on a new stock ( the Colorado School of Trades uses it in their 'smithing courses) but I have had compatibility problems on old stocks that had been stripped, My problem was that it took forever to dry!(a week between coats) I'm sure it was preparation problem on my part.Additionaly, I have found it extremely hard to find, even in a metropolitan area. I finally wound up special ordering it. Sitka is also right about a shortcut, I use one or two coats of polyurethane varnish, thinned 50%, or Thompsons Water-Lox,unthinned, sanded wet with mineral spirits between coats, and then finish up with a couple of coats of your favorite oil libation( not Budweiser or Mobil)<P>A short note on Michigan demographics and Trolls: <BR>Michigan is divided into halves: The Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula. Two entirely different worlds! They are connected only by a bridge, The Mackinaw bridge. Trolls' live under bridges. So anybody who lives in the Lower peninsula is called a Troll. And if you live in the Upper Peninsula your'e a 'Youper', short for a UP'r. To paraphrase; There are only two kinds, them that are Youpers and them that want to be Youpers. ....oaklane

Oaklane<BR>The drying trouble related to the varathane 66 is always related to finish which has been opened and not used within 6 mos. Fresh, it will dry rapidly even on wet wood. In the 20 plus years I have been using it, I have never seen, or heard of, a compatibility problem.<P>All of the secret blends and mixes that get thrown in and on a stock are what cause problems down the road. Any drivers, such as turpentine, will evaporate and when the do they create channels down into the wood. Guess what, water in vapor form can get in and out of those channels. It is the changing moisture conditions which cause problems in wood stability. Never thin finish unless it cannot be done full strength. <P>Nothing is as painless, fool-proof and cheap as the 66. There is a reason why so many custom stock makers use the stuff. If used under an oil it will limit the problems they can lead to.<BR>art<P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the problem we are seeking to solve a change in the moisture content, and not the content per se? To that end shouldn't the oil, undriven, maintain or stabalize the moisture content once it becomes saturated at this 6% fiqure? Or does it stabalize at some higher number?<BR>I think the troll and bridge thing was from "The Billy Goats Gruff."

The 6% figure is anything but consistent. In your area you will see large relative humidity swings through the course of the year, the wood will follow. For grins, weigh a small piece of wood carefully on your powder scale and then reweigh it several times through the year. If you expand the project to about 500-1" walnut cubes, finished every way you can imagine, you will get an idea of what my little research corner looks like. They change an amazing amount. A weight change equals a change in size.<P>In point of fact most oil finishes have varying amounts of varnish in them, and lots of wax. More varnish equals more solvent in the blend, more wax, likewise. Oil is generally the cheapest, best extender for the finish, so is the main ingredient.<P>In the old days, oils were heated to the smoking point to start kicking off a polymerizing reaction, which we refer to as drying. The drying that is done is a result of the solvents leaving. Today the "boiling" is accomplished by means of a variety of catalysts. Not long ago they were heavy metal based ie. the original Japan dryer. Today they are safe, and not heavy metal based.<P>I am trying to write this without getting pedantic or overly technical. Not trying to annoy anyone, but there is more misinformation about finishes for wood than any field I have ever seen. I have done a lot of basic research in the field, comparing lots of secret recipes, etc. Keep it very simple and you will be happy with the results. If you want to wax your wood (great idea) put it on the top, where it belongs. <BR>art<P><P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Sitka, Please don't stop or think you're being over technical. Many of us here enjoy learning the ins and outs of this hobby. Your insight and explainations are invaluable information. Again, please continue. ~MarinePMI

Sitka:<P>Just must of been a bad batch of the Varethane! I ordered from the local jobber and he got it from the distributor. No telling how long it had been setting on the shelf. Used it the same day on a factory stock that I had chemically stripped, sanded and whiskered. Later that week, I used it over a sandable clear sealer for possible use on some furniture. Got the same results. I'll give it a another try!!<P>I agree 100% with your comments on linseed oil and tung oil. I never use them on a sporter stock, period, and rarely on a milsurp, and then only if I'm duplicating an original finish. The formulas that I quoted above for Youper are what the Enfield and Mauser collectors use on their stocks and they are really really touchy about their beloved BLO(boiled linseed oil), if you read any posts on those forums.<P>And no you weren't being overly pedantic or technical, after all thats what these forums are designed for .... the free exchange ideas and hints. After all it's the empirical research(like does it really work?) you and others take the time to do that makes things easier for the rest of us. ...Oakland

Another quick point about oils. If you have ever finished anything with oil, worked yourself into a lather getting the finish perfect, only to go back a couple months later to find all of the pores telegraphing as little dimples, or little pimples, you must realize the oil changed size. Most of the time it is because the oil continued to polymerize and out-gas solvents, thereby shrinking and leaving the little dimples.<P>Take a typical oil "finish" rather than straight oil and do the same thing, then put it some where warm, even months later, and the oil underneath the surface of the finish gets driven out by the heat-induced expansion (generally it is the air in the wood which expands, raw oil only expands a max of 5% over a large temp range, cured much less). There you have your pimples.<P>The polymerizing is an oxidizing reaction, which takes the oxygen from the air. If you put wax in your finish it will inhibit the curing by slowing the movement of the oxygen. Making dimples or pimples more likely.<P>While you can build a nice finish with BLO, it is temporary. On another thread, I believe I was asking for thoughts on rebarreling a 7mm Rem mag to something else, I wrote out my formula for a new stock finish. It uses 66 or Tru-oil over epoxy.<BR>art<P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Sitka:<BR> <BR>You have piqued my interest. Ya gotta give us that formula for epoxy and Varethane. The last time I used an epoxy finish was in 1965 on a customers gun. This finish was touted by all the gun mags as 'bulletproof'! That was two mistakes: A. using a personally untried finishing method on a customers gun and B.,the epoxy itself which had to be water sanded between coats. And of course you know what happened when I sanded thru the epoxy...I raised the grain all over again. If I hadn't water sanded it, the customer would still have been waiting. ...oaklane

Oaklane<BR>My father wrote an article in rifle magazine a number of years ago with his version of this. His mistakes were using relatively fast setting epoxy, and thinning it with acetone.<P>Start with a fully sanded stock, heat it in an oven to the point it is hard to hold with bare hands. I like to do it in front of the oven to keep it hot, my wife would prefer I didn't. Use epoxy with a minimum set time of 24 hrs, I use G-1 or G-2 from Industrial Formulators in Toronto, available from Garrett Wade. The latter is a 48 hr set which I use if there is any oily exotic wood in a grip cap or fore end tip. Ebony is fine with either.<P>Mix the glue on a flat board, give it about 20-30 minutes to set, remix very well and apply. I built a rack which uses the action holes to support without touching a finished surface. As the epoxy soaks in, keep putting it on. The cooling wood will suck up a lot of finish. Wipe off any excess.<P>After it sets, block sand with the blue Norzon paper, dry, about 320 usually works to start on any runs or rough spots. Then wet-sand carefully, I use 3m and mineral spirits usually, but don't hesitate to use water. If this goes well there will be no grain raised or bare wood peeking through. It almost never goes well for me, so I repeat the epoxy, but more delicately and I wipe off any which does not soak into the wood. The heating, I believe dries any water which I put in by wetsanding.<P>Then I put a 66 or Tru-oil finish over the epoxy in a normal fashion, no special precautions or sealers. <P>The places to be careful are getting "build" from the epoxy, thereby ruining your nice flat faces and straight lines. Yes, it is a lot of work to get the epoxy just right, but the result is a piece of wood which will sit in 100% humidity at 100F for a week and only pick up the water it takes to saturate the oil finish, without affecting the shape of the wood beneath. No varnish or sealant that I have tested has even come close to the humidity resistance of this finish. It looks and repairs just like the oil finish it is.<BR>art<P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

There are many finishes that will work on gunstocks. But inorder to keep that rifle shooting straight you must determine if your local climate will have an effect on the wood. Oil finishes, linseed, are not the best water repelants. All of which has been discussed. What you need to realize is that no matter the finish used it will look only as good as your prep work. The most costly finish on the market will not fix a poor prep job. Sanding takes time power tools help but when it comes to the real fine finish the removal of all sand marks is what you strive for. Then you get down to the fine finish. I have a little tool that I have been using for twenty years that simply can't be beat for sealing up the pores on a gun stock. This tool is usually free if you have a dog. I use a dog bone, thats correct a 3-5 inch portion of a beef shank bone, Cleaned of course and cooked. I steal bones from dogs they clean them up real good. Make sure the bone is free of any leftovers. Grasp the bone in your hand and rub the stock lightly, heavy pressure can leave lines. The rubbing polishes the wood to a gloss. This dosn't take long but care must be taken so as not to leave marks in the wood. I have 10-15 different bones to fit almost all shapes and contours. They never wear out just get better. The bones them selfs begin to shine. I have tried using them on the finish, dosn't work. but on bare wood it's the best final touch before appling finish. <P>Try it you'll see.<BR>Your neighbors will think you are weird when they see you out stealing dog bones, mine got used to it. <BR>they are just not used to me.<P>Bullwnkl.

As a custom gun builder, I have settled on a formula of 1part Trueoil, 1part minerel spirits an 1partDanish oil(Danish heats it up).....I have substituted Varathene 66 for the trueoil, buy inasmuch as Varathane contains Touinal (SP) a cancer causing carsenagen I backed off of it and the trueoil finish is a oil modified finis and is somewhat harder anyway....It is also thin enouugh to use as a sanding liquid in my formula that allows you to push the oil modified sanding dust back into the wood pores so that you can go witha built up finish or an in the wood finish....<P>There are just two ways to go on gunstocks and that is polyurathane or modified oil finish, and either is exceptable...<P>Warning stright tung,Linseed or other oils are slow drying even with dryers and are not at all waterproof.....<P>Linspeed is linseed oil based with dryers and is a good finish...<P>Trueoil is a modified tung oil with additives and dryers and is the best in my opinnion for a number of reasons..<P>Varathane is nothing more than a polyurathane..very water proof and a nice finish but damn slow to dry and one should wait 48 hrs minimum between coats....<P>Finish has a mind of its own and one man can apply one and another man can't get the desired results, no matter what....Thats why there are so many options...find one that fits you and stay with it...No one finish is better than the other, the secret is in the application...To say otherwise is a lack of experience....<P>------------------<BR>Ray Atkinson<BR>atkinsonhunting.com<BR>208-326-4120

I put True Oil on a military Mauser 16 years ago and it still looks great. One thing though, if it is your first time don't make the mistake I did of carefully going over the stock with fine steel wool and then only air blowing the steel burrs off -- take 'em off with a tack-cloth or something! There is nothing more frustrating than seeing little bits (I mean really little -- they're too small to see but show up after the oil is applied) of steel wool stuck in your new finish.

Ray,<BR>To suggest that "no one finish is better than another, etc" flies right in the face of any sort of logic. Makes it hard to explain why some finishes are so much more common than others. Besides, simple tests of water resistance show huge differences between finishes. Not to say that taste cannot play a huge part in deciding which finish is best for a particular application.<P>Don't know where you got your descriptions of the various finishes, but most are not close to correct, or rather are simplistic descriptions which miss the point.<P>Have a bit of problem with the concept of using sanding dust to fill the pores. Stocks filled this way stand out because of the complete lack of depth in the finish. It cripples a pretty piece of wood. If light cannot get through the finish to reflect off the wood chatoyancy suffers.<P>Not intending to flame, but suggesting anyone without your opinion lacks experience is decidedly hubristic.<BR>art <P>------------------<BR>Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

I have to agree with Sitka. Finishes are absolutely different and some are simply better than others. Having spent a few years making custom furniture I know a little about wood finishes, though I readily admit I'm no expert in this field. One word of caution: read the label. What you think you're buying may not always be what you are in fact buying. Formby's Tung Oil finish is a popular finish for do-it-yourselfers and is a good example. This is not a tung oil finish at all. It is a highly thinned varnish. Now it may in fact contain tung oil (but I'm not sure it does), since varnish consists of oil and resin, but it is not a true tung oil finish. For the most part I would say that most finishes are properly labeled, but some are simply not. You may see some simply labeled "Clear Wood Finish". In this case you can find out what it is by determining what it is that is used to thin it or to clean it up. If it requires mineral spirits, naptha, turpentine, paint thinner, etc.., it is probably a varnish. If it calls for acetone or other alcohol based thinners it is more than likely lacquer.