Treating No 7 MK 1 wood

[DaveN]

I have a No 7 that has the dry lighter looking wood I think they all came with. I'm a Garand collector and know all about linseed oil and turpentine but is there a different way to bring the color out and get some much needed moisture into the stock? Is staining the wood recommend?

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Maple_Leaf_Eh]

The wood is never stained, only age oyzidized. If I remember right, wipe the surface with turps as a cleaner and rub down with linseed oil. Wipe again and again.

[Centurion]

I have done alot of stockwork on Milsurps over the years. Stocks have ranged from almost black with old grease/oil/stain, to new, unissued. Interestingly, I have have a number of Longbranch butts and foreends that arrived still wrapped in paper and never issued. After all those years, the stock treatment was a pleasing sort of dark orange, in the original walnut. There was no linseed oil treatment on these pieces. Now, most of the time it is necessary to remove the old finish (often someone has varnished the stocks over the years), degrease the stock and then repair it before starting the refinish job. I use water-based urea stripper, rinsing the stripped stock with lots of fresh cold water. When the stock is dry, it is not unusual to see lots of oil leaching out of the wood, especially where it contacted metal parts. I like to soak the stock in turpentine and have a small tank for this purpose. It may be several days to get most of the oil/grease out. It takes several days for the wood to dry thoroughly after removal from the turpentine. When dry I then use a steam iron and old linen tee-shirts to lift the dents. I like to soak the tee-shirt then apply it to the wood and proceed to apply the iron over the dented areas. By the way, this also lifts a fair amount of oil and grease out of the wood too, so be careful to change the shirt material when it gets a greyish tinge as this is old oil. When the wood is repaired it is allowed to dry for at least a day. I like Birchwood Casey "Tru-Oil" as a finish but have also used various woodstains as well, depending on how I want the finish to appear. I won't get into sanding as this is a contentious issue. I prefer to use oil-free 4-0 Steelwool after the Tru-Oil application to give the wood a matted or semi-gloss appearance. After the Tru-Oil is applied in enough coats to totally seal the grain, and after the steelwool buffing I clean all the remaining wool bits out of any inletted areas and then apply Conservators Wax (Lee Valley carries this) to the exterior of the stock to protect that carefully-applied finish. I'm sure that lots of people will feel that this is too much fiddling with a military finish but I like to shoot all my guns and I have never had any problems with oil staining despite shooting some of these guns weekly for more than 20 years.

[jmoore]

Is staining the wood recommended?

With Enfield stocks, no. Let the wood do it's own thing. As you know, the linseed oil will darken over time, but that's about it as far as color modification goes. Standard finish for Enfields in military service was plain old raw linseed oil, often applied by immersing the wood into a heated tank of the stuff. Boiled linseed oil was an acceptable substitute, but it doesn't penetrate as far into the pores and tends to be glossier.

[Peter Laidler]

JM is right............ We could stain it occasionally but only really to bring light wood darker in order to match with already dark wood. If the whole set was already light, then that's how it was left!

[DaveN]

Thanks to all! The stock is just very dry and the military way is how I prefer just wanted to make sure that wiping it down with turps and applying BLO was okay? I usually leave the dents in as with all my Garands I think it's the rifles character but in this case there are no dents or scratches. I may also rub it out with the 000 or 0000 steel wool as its a little rough to the touch but that's about as far as I want to go with this one.

[Peter Laidler]

Just remember to preserve/protect the edges and corners at all costs. That's what separates the REAL Armourers from the enthusiastic amateurs - or 'hand sanders' as we call them!