doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Cleaning the Classics.

The Wood,

The majority of the rifles I collect and study have a linseed oil finish. I think each gunmaker had his own recipe and I don�t know what the mixture of turpentine to linseed oil was for every maker.

Linseed oil is not looked on with favor today but it�s what was used to finish these rifles. When Springfield Armory made a rifle that was do the job all over the world in every conceivable condition they submerged the bare stock into hot RAW linseed oil then hung them up to dry.

Several years ago a friend�s collection was submerged during a flood. Most of the guns, both rifle and shotguns, had water up to the locks or forward action. My late friend John Wills and I help remove them and clean them up. He had several British double rifles and shotguns and well as some other sporters with oiled stocks. We pulled the stocks and locks and cleaned out the water and after a day or so and a few drops of linseed oil they looked just like they did before the flood. The other�s with a more modern finish on the wood were disasters, the Browning Over-Unders filled with water and then swelled shut trapping water in the through bolt hole, when you unscrewed the buttplate water just poured out.

When reading older gunsmithing stuff you will see many references to �Boiled Linseed Oil�. This was linseed oil that was boiled in a pressure vessel until it thickened. Today they have drying chemicals added to the oil they call boiled. The nearest I can find to original boiled linseed oil is called �stand oil �. I�ve been working with stand oil for a time and it shows a lot of promise, still have a long way to go before I can give any detail instructions. Most everything I do involves just raw linseed oil.

http://www.dickblick.com/products/gamblin-stand-oil/

If the stock has years of built up crud, do you clean it prior to the linseed oil?

Kremer Pigments of New York is a leading supplier of art conservation materials and has several different oils available as well as about anything else to use for finishing/painting. They sell in bulk and you can save some serious money over the smaller retailers.

I'm kind of jumping ahead but every stock I have had to clean in the last decade I have used nothing but raw linseed oil, a tooth brush for the checkering and in some cases 0000 steel wool.

Some have been very dirty and a good coat, lather it on until the stock is wet allover. This will do wonders for cleaning the wood and not removing the underlying stock finish. Let it soak and take your time, wipe with a clean cloth or paper towel.

If the stock is in such bad shape that the original finish has to be removed I try to stay away from them.

I�ve divided problems with wood into dents, gouges and missing pieces. Dents, which are compression of the wood fibers are a good candidate for steaming. I made a new head out of brass for my hand held soldering iron. I take a cotton patch and soak it in water then cover the dent with the patch and with some pressure press down with the iron and force the steam into the wood. Remember this only works on finishes that are in the wood.


Gouges have lost wood and need to be filled. On this last rifle I tried a new way to fill the gouge that was explained to me by my friend Bryndon. Instead of mixing fine sawdust with epoxy as I have done in the past I used super glue. I put the stock in the vise with the gouge up and outlined it with painters blue tape. I put a layer of super glue in the bottom and dumped in the sawdust and pressed it down with my fingers. I then brushed out the loose sawdust and repeated the same, five times, until it was proud of the tape. I then filed & sand papered it down to the stock, colored it and oiled it. What I like about this method is you can work with it right away and not have to wait a day for the glue to dry.

A person with more skill than myself might have inletted a new piece of wood into the area.

Missing pieces of wood I�ll cover later.

I believe super glues are biodegradable, are you concerned the patch will fall out over time?

You just might want to try a product called Restor-a-Finish which is available at Lowes or Home Depot. This comes in various shades but of course I use their walnut the most. I also use 4/0 steel wool and tooth brushes for the checkering and the results I've produced had been amazing.
I got a WW I vintage Luger with a real dingy pair of grips awhile back that I though would have to be re-checkered. Yes; they were that bad. A careful scrubbing with this product and a toothbrush removed all the crud from the checkering and revealed a very nicely grained set of grips.
The next time I get something like this in I'll shoot some before and after pictures.
Jim

Not really and had not thought about it. Back when I worked for a living, it was at a remote location. I took a hit to the mouth and a large part of a front tooth broke off. We cleaned it up, air dried the parts, and super glued the broken part back on. It held for twenty-two years.

I couldn't agree more Michael with your remarks above. Since I first started gunsmithing in the early 1970's I have made more replacement screws than anything else. I rapidly learned that unless I made a set of screwdrivers for every gun I worked on that sooner or later they would come back the boogered screw heads. Making replacement screws was not my favourite pastime.

I milled all my screwdrivers out of Silver Steel stock (for USA read Drill rod. The tips were milled parallel using a side cutting end mill. No great sweat, but I did get fed up with how many 'Bubba's there were using any tool they could get to enter the screw slot. When I make screws today (which I now only make for myself) I use high quality grade Tool Steel that is correctly heat treated when machining is finished. Nothing but nothing spoils the look of any firearm more than boogered screw heads.

Harry

Harry,

I know what you are saying, I use screw stock but don't remember the number. I do very little if any work for others so I have to only please one person ;-).