Linseed Oil Finish - How to Clean? Refinishing?

[Brian Dick]

Try grocery store grade clear ammonia and a Scothbrite pad. Rinse with cold water, reapply RLO and buff out with fine steel wool. Repeat as many times as you desire. Never-ever-ever use lye based oven cleaner. It will damage and discolor or grey most gunstock wood and will destroy wood like Australian coachwood. No offense to anyone intended but it's a lazy mans method and does more harm than good.

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[Patrick Chadwick]

Never-ever-ever use lye based oven cleaner. It will damage and discolor or grey most gunstock wood and will destroy wood like Australian coachwood. No offense to anyone intended but it's a lazy mans method and does more harm than good.

Thanks for that, Brian. It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone on this. Likewise, drying methods like "put it in the oven/behind a window in blazing sunshine" are for people who have apparently never heard of "grain", "shrinkage" and "warping". Methods that would disturb a serious carpenter and shock a cabinet-maker are totally unsuited to a piece of precision engineering.