Finnish finish

[Pete04]

I have a Finn M39, 1942 Valmet that I rescued from a moose hunter. To be fair, buddy had seen the error of his ways and had stopped really, before he got started. As it turns out, I got what appears to be, a post war ( pointed finger joint ) unissued, minty stocked rifle. I have three of these now and they all have beautiful wood but the wood on all of them seems very dry and unfinished. This one was the least expensive so I thought I would start with it by degrease/dewax and then lightly rubbing down with 0000 steel wool with pure turpintine as a lubricant ( sort of like wet sanding ), followed by degreasing and then multiple coats of one part pure turpine to three parts boiled linseed oil allowing ten-twelve hrs. between coats.

I really don't want to experiment, but I think I should do something. Any advice would be helpfull.

Thanks in advance,

Pete

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[desporterizer]

The smartest thing to do with any finn rifle is just clean it with varsol(or equiv) & leave the rest alone.But some post war stocks have almost no finish at all. If there are some areas that are bare rub some linssed & bees wax. To do too much more will erase alot of the service history & trash the value. For example my 39 had a relativly high velocity piece of metal go throught the forestock, leaving a hole & cracking the wood. A proper repair from an arsenal point of view would be a wood splice. But since I am not an arsenal all I did was put some high strength super glue in the crack to keep it from getting worse & a little linseed on the bare wood. The stock on your m-39 was probably left unfinished & put away. Personaly I would either use the linseed Or pure tung oil (tung oil is less obvious)& avoid the steel wool.

[desporterizer]

Btw that thing looked beautiful if its the one I am thinking of.

[sdh1911]

You'd be well advised to stick to just a good scrubbing and a little oil, I think that gun is pretty rare and any obvious changes would kill the value,HTH-SDH

[Claven2]

I generally just clean them, and if they are dry, I handrub some BLO into them. If the stocks aren't bright blonde, then they are pine-tarred. You don't want to remove that original finish, so stay away from using Varsol. A light oil rub followed by some 1/3'rds mixture (bee's wax, BLO and Turp) is likely a good choice.

[Pete04]

Claven2, when you say clean them, do you mean soap and water? My goal here is to preserve the wood, not to change the look or provinaunce ( is that a word? LOL) in any way. The other two are similar to the one we are both familiar with. The wood to me appears to have not been finished or even oiled for that matter. These beauties will not be safe queens, but I don't want to take them out unprotected.

desporterizer, yea, thats the one and she's even better up close. The block of ammo didn't hurt either! lol

sid1911, I wouldn't do anything to hurt them. I was in wooden boat restoration for many years and have great appreciation for wood finishing. The point here is these stocks are new. They seem to have minimal or no finish. They are raw wood to the touch. What would you scrub them with? Specificly, what oil or oil/wax/solvent blend would you use?
Thanks folks,

Pete

[desporterizer]

My experience with original finn finish & varsol has been positive with no degredation at all. Have you had worse luck claven? You could use turpintine to clean it & then hit it with some linseed or tung oil. Mind you none of the solvents really do a good job of cleaning but the only process I have used that does involves water & I would rather stay away from that.

[Claven2]

I would only avoid varsol in the ones that are dark with pine tar. Even then, I am likely being over-cautious. On those rifles, the most intrusive thing i do is to smear on a light coat of vaseline, let sit for a couple hours and then buff it off with paper towel. Then I give it a nice BLO rub. The Vaseline leaches out most of the dirt without touching the finish - old trick

The mix is 1/3 bee's wax heated to melting, then add 1/3 BLO and 1/3 Turpentine while the wax is still liquid. Stir and let cool. BE CAREFUL! Turpentine and wax are flammables! Heat only enough to melt the wax.

I do this in an old shoe polish can. Once it solidifies it acts as the container with a lid and everything

[Pete04]

OK, the deed is done. I dissassembled everything exept for the spring lock for the front barrel band and the transverse bolt in the fore stock finger groove. I did the vaseline trick and then gave her four separate coats of Claven2s' witches brew, hand rubbing with lint free towels in between coats. I was able to clear away the rest of the cosmiline the moose hunter missed around the trigger and in the magazine and followers. Now reassembled instead of being blond and rough to the touch, she is golden blond and silky smooth and frankly drop dead gorgous. The wood was just completely dried out. I can't think I have harmed its collector value in that it had no battle scars to preserve. It's unissed. Thanks for the cleaning tips and please let me know if anyone disagrees with my doing this cause I have two more to do and they are the SK.Y ones and I wouldn't want to mess with history.
Pete

[Claven2]

Sounds good Pete, post a photo. You might want to give a hand-rubbed coat of BLO or raw linseed cut 50% with turpentine before applying the wax mix next time as it will richen the wood a tad.

If one of the Sky's is the one I sold you, on that one, just apply the wax as desired. It's already clean and hand-rubbed with a light coat of oil.