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On USGI stocks only RAW linseed oil was used. As stated a new stock was dipped into warm linseed oil and then it dripped dried. NO boiled linseed oil was used on USGI stocks and NO TUNG oil was used.
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02-16-2019 08:49 PM
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painter, you speak my mind entirely, to the dot even. Glad someone has tried it before me.
Sunray, you tell me that but I have half a dozen stocks that have gone from dark, grimy, and dry to quite pretty, using just elbow grease and RLO. Seems more effective even than turps and the like. If the wood is meant to be red but its brown and icky, then keeping scrubbing with linseed, buff it off, and then it comes back a bit more red, do that several times and it looks great. There is quite a lot of argument isn't there? RLO works fine for everything I do, and cleaning it is just another coat of RLO and a buff. Easy peasy. For me it seems to only take a night in the safe to almost entirely soak in after I scrub it down.
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There's no real argument that I can see. It's just a case of doing it as original or not. To each his own I reckon. The original finish, (raw linseed), will oxidize with age and produce the dark, reddish tint, doesn't have harmful chemicals in it and if you learn to apply it properly, doesn't really take any longer than using any of the other finishes. The wood of a properly finished military rifle should feel just a bit tacky when it's fresh out of the workshop. The tackiness won't last long with handling, use and care.
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Overnight in the hot-to-touch linseed bath was the ONLY thing that would protect the fore-ends, butts and handguards of our weaponry in the tropics. Overnight bath and lines of them left hanging up to drip into a tray. Then the tray tipped back into the oil tank. That and phosphate/sunkorite were the only known protection so far as we were concerned
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Overnight in the hot-to-touch linseed bath was the ONLY thing that would protect the fore-ends, butts and handguards of our weaponry in the tropics. Overnight bath and lines of them left hanging up to drip into a tray. Then the tray tipped back into the oil tank. That and phosphate/sunkorite were the only known protection so far as we were concerned
Peter, I assume the bath treated multiple stock parts, so what was the process to ensure previously hand fitted parts on a rifle did not get mixed up with another rifle? The fore-end was numbered, but what about the butt, and the hands guards etc? Did they get marked in some way or were they held or bound together or was it a case of re-assembling and re-fitting component parts from scratch again?
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With interchangeable parts such as Bren woodwork, rifle handguards, pistol side grips etc there really wasn't a problem. Fore-ends and butts would be wired together and numbered with the usual identity discs that we'd use over and over again. No5 fore-ends would have the troublesome nose cap removed, the hole pegged and rounded off. The shotgun butts and fore-ends had to be scraped down first to get rid of the commercial varnish and have sling swivels fitted on some of them. But most times, they'd been through before and were back to bare wood. The mystery was why the special forces shotguns always had string instead of proper slings!!!!!
Last edited by Peter Laidler; 02-18-2019 at 04:38 PM.
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Originally Posted by
Sunray
The old oil needs to be removed and the wood cleaned first.
Agreed. You can't polish grime.
When I bought my ex-Indian Martini-Henry it stank of rancid butter and was weeping oil. Seriously, from the smell, I suspect it may have been dunked in ghee or a similar substance derived from animal fat.
Normally, I recommend natural turpentine for removing grime: first applied by itself, and later with an increasing proportion of linseed oil. In this case, I had to be rather more drastic, and kept on wiping it down with acetone (windows wide open!) until the weeping stopped and the smell disappeared. And then the turpentine/linseed oil procedure, ending with IMHO the best linseed oil one can get - comestible linseed oil that, after being stored in the shade for more than 2 decades, now runs like comb honey. Applied dropwise on a cloth moistened with turpentine. Smells good, looks good.
It may not have been 56 applications, but certainly double-figures!
Last edited by Patrick Chadwick; 02-18-2019 at 06:53 PM.
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Brian, would it be possible for you to share what brand of RLO you prefer.....thank you....regards...alex
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I'd been using Crown brand for a number of years. When I went shopping on the internet a few weeks ago, I found Sunnyside brand. I can't tell the difference. It was $41 USD for a gallon which will last me a long time. Make sure it's the pure 100% raw stuff.
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thank you, thank you....regards...alex
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