Boiled Linseed Oil on stock

[Aragorn243]

I've been cleaning up my milsurp stocks and then coating them with BLO and they are coming along nicely. I put a coat on a day for about two weeks and that seems to do it as they stop absorbing it around that time.

My question involves a civilian rifle with a walnut stock. This rifle is about 25 years old and has seen extensive hunting use as my primary deer rifle. It had a varnished stock from the factory that over the years was becoming more yellowed, cracked and brittle so I decided to remove it and put BLO on it too. The stock was dry as a bone. I put the BLO on and it shined right up. But that's as far as it's gone. It absorbed it to a small degree but it's been sitting there with a semi-liquid sheen on it for three days now. It looks nice but it didn't absorb much at all. Anyone know why one coat seems to have saturated it?

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[tbonesmith]

The varnish residue, or the factory clearcoat may have a sealer beneath it. When I clearcoat anything at work, sealer as a base is essential to a glossy or satin topcoat. I doubt very much that any factory stocks have been finished in (true) varnish in ages, because it requires too much maintenance and there have been far more appropriate urethane or epoxy based finishes around for decades. Anyway I think that some underlying sealer, seals the timber and will not allow the oil to penetrate. I wouldn't worry about it either, there are numerous ways to stabilize timber, one is to seal it up so that the moisture content will not change with atmospheric humidity, and another is to saturate it as far as possible with oil to achieve the same thing.
If the hunting rifle was mine I'd clean off the oil, lightly sand it, just to clean the surface and spray it with a modern clearcoat. If you don't have that option, why not wipe off the oil and try some Tru oil or some other surface coating that will harden, preferably that you can wipe on, as brush marks are difficult to avoid and look shabby.[COLOR="Silver"]

[jdmcomp]

My experience with BLO is quite different. I find that just adding multiple layers of oil results in a sticky uncured finish. The oil is applied thinly, rubbed in with the ball of the hand, and any excess must be removed by wiping it down with a clean towel. Allow to dry for several days and repeat. Multiple thin coats are much better, the more rubbing the better, rubbing enough to create a little heat in the oil. The result is a water proof satin coat of oil that is easily renewed with a single application as above. Soaking wood in oil turns it into mush, ruining the wood.

[Johnny Peppers]

Agree with jdmcomp on the thin coats. Use coats as thin as you can apply them, and don't apply another coat until the previous one is dry. I cut my BLO 50/50 with turpentine and it aids applying thin coats, and initially it helps the wood take the first coat. Put a heavy coat on for the first coat, let it sit for about 30 minutes, and then wipe it down thoroughly with toweling. Smooth out any places that remain. After that just put a dot of finish on and rub it out until it will spread no farther and repeat.
Initially the 50/50 mix will smell like turpentine, but the turpentine smell quickly goes away and you have the great BLO smell.

[louthepou]

What did you do to remove the old varnish? Did you strip it with some old finish remover?

[Aragorn243]

I generally scrape the varnish off. This rifle as checkering on it which I used some finish remover on. This was a combined effort of finish remover and scraping. Used the remover to soften it and then scraped it off gooey. It was a mess. It cleaned up ok and the wood looked great, nice and dry and uniform in color. It is Walnut by the way, nice grain, tight grain too.

I left it with the one coat of BLO on it. It sat for several days and it was still slightly wet in some spots so I just rubbed that in. The wood looks great, better than I had been hoping for but I'm still somewhat put off with just the one coat of BLO on it. I hunt in the rain, quite a bit. Granted the holes in the varnish were soaking up water like crazy and it's not like it's going to stay wet long.

My military rifles soak in at least 5 coats before they start to look like they are finished and I believe I put about 10 or so on my Swedish Mauser before I was happy with it. I always use what I would call thin coats. I just put my finger on the spout and tip it onto it and then rub that bit in before moving on to the next section. Stopped using rags after I heard they can spontaneously combust.

[us019255]

"...What did you do to remove the old varnish?..."

I have refinished sporter stocks by removing the factory finish with ordinary varnish remover. One old brand is "Zip-Strip". Do it a couple of times. Wash with solvent (paint thinner, lacquer thinner). Finish sand etc. At this point you will have removed most all of the original sealer and the stock will take BLO just like a military stock.

One bonus for all of your work: After a number of hunting seasons you can renew by just rubbing on some more BLO!