Cleaning up / preserving some stocks

[1337]

What in your opinion is the best way to preserve a stock with carvings? Without taking much away from the original state, keeping dry rot away and what not.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

[galahad]

It depends on the original finish.  In all cases you'll want to make sure that 99.5% of the cosmoline is out of the wood by repeated baking, then figure out if it's shellac or something else.  If shellac the first thing you'll want to try is to smooth the shellac over any "open" spots.  If necessary you can add just a bit of shellac to the worst dings and dents but avoiding the carvings themselves as the shellac was intentionally removed from those areas.  I'd probably lay the gun on it's side and brush some pure tung oil on the carvings and let it sit for a few months.  The wood will absorb whatever amount of oil that it can hold and that should preserve it for at least a few years.

[neuro]

Im gonna necro this one since it is fresh on my mind.

I have a similar rifle.  I am, at the moment, bleeding the cosmo out of it, but have a lot of scratched areas and about 20-30% of the shellack remaining. 

I dont want to refinish the stock, since it is original.   Would you still recomend tung oil?  doesnt this color the wood after a while?

[galahad]

Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

Since you only have a very small percentage of the original shellac remaining the bad news is that it will really never be in the "collectible" arena.  Your objective really has to be to preserve the wood, not the original finish as it's essentially gone and what is remaining probably has only a very slight bond with the wood. 

My suggestion would be to VERY LIGHTLY scrape the remaining shellac back and forth until the remaining bond is broken.  Then I'd hand rub two or three coats of boiled linseed oil into the wood and finish it with a couple of coats of Trewax paste floor wax.  The Trewax has a very high concentration of Carnauba wax which is really a strong wax.  Just make sure that the linseed oil is really soaked in before waxing.  You should end up with a semi-gloss finish.

[neuro]

would Tung oil be a good sub for BLO?

[Bruce W Sims]

I was advised that using lemon oil was a better cleaner but noone mentioned it here.
Did I get bad info for my CHICOM 56?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Lafayettegregory]

HOLY necro thread!  Yes, lemon oil is bad. It will turn your stock dark with streaks. Lemon oil is for a highly finished piece of hardwood antique furniture with plenty of finish on the surface.

[Bruce W Sims]

HOLY necro thread!  Yes, lemon oil is bad. It will turn your stock dark with streaks. Lemon oil is for a highly finished piece of hardwood antique furniture with plenty of finish on the surface.

CRAP!!  Now you got me thinking that maybe I need to take a step back and rethink things.

Since my piece is a RVN Bring Back made in 1968 and liberated in 1972 I assumed that time in the
hands of the previous owner had allowed it to "season" and that all I needed to provide is some TLC.
I may need to GOOGLE for a while to find out what SOP is for caring for a stock of my vintage and
not make anymore assumptions, right?  Thanks....

Since the search here doesn't work....Does Anyone know of a thread or sticky that might address this?

Best Wishes,

Bruce