Refinishing surplus guns

[h2o-5o]

What is everyone's preferred method (or lack thereof) to refinish military surplus guns?

Metal - I use Brownell's Oxpho-blue to touch up the bluing and/or parkerizing. I've only tried a few assorted cold blues, but this seems to work the best, for me.

Stocks - I've used Formby's Tung Oil Finish, as well as Minwax Stain/Polyurethane combo. Both of these leave a hard, non-military (in my opinion) finish, but is undoubtably a very durable finish. I know boiled linseed oil is the traditional finish, but I've never tried refinishing using it. Maybe I should try it on one, as I'm not completely sold on the Tung or Poly I've been using.

So, are there any tips/advice that experience folks can offer?

[sharpshooter]

Strip the wood and prepare it well. Boiled linseed oil looks awesome, it really brings out the grain. Add layers of oil until it starts to build up. Some parts of the stock will not absorb the oil as much as other parts, so the BLO will start to build up in those spots and look shiny. Sand the whole stock down with wet paper in 600 grit or similar. Build up the layers again. Sand it down again. Keep doing that until all the wood has soaked up the oil evenly. After the last wet sanding, apply the final coat of BLO. Let it dry for a week. Then spray it with an aerosol can of Helmsan Spar varnish in semi-gloss. You'll want at least 3 coats. You can do more, but you'll need to lightly sand after the first few coats or the finish will not be perfectly smooth. let that cure for another week to prevent maring when you re-assemble the rifle. If you happen to scratch up the stock a little during reassembly, like slipping barrel bands over wood, smooth off the scratch and use a Q-tip to apply a little more varnish to the scratch and that will hide it.

Trust me, it looks real nice and is very durable. The spar varnish adds just a little bit of yellow color making it look seasoned, and the BLO makes the wood look like you can look right down inside the grains. If you want more color on your wood, add a little bit of Minwax oil stain to the first few coats of BLO. Just be careful not to sand off the layers that have stain or you'll have light spots.

[m2hmghb]

I just put on tung oil, however many I feel like basicly. Minimum of 3 max of, well I have never maxed out.

[Bushbacker]

I use Behr's Tung Oil finish. It is recommended on the C&R Riflestock Cleaning and Preservation forum. Some Home Depots carry it. I had to order direct from Behr as my local Home Depots do not carry it. It was $10 for a quart, including shipping. Here is a good essay by "Cabinetman", the moderator of the forum:


http://p102.ezboard.com/fparallaxscurioandrelicfirearmsforumsfrm34.showMessage?topicID=1355.topic

Blo & Tung oil.

What would you say if I told you that "Boiled Linseed Oil" wasn't boiled at all? You'd say "pishaw!" I'm sure. In fact, however, Boiled Linseed Oil isn't boiled at all. Linseed Oil is squeezed from the Flax plant. BLO is simply regular Linseed Oil with metallic dryers added. These driers are what make linseed oil "cure" within a day or so. Without them, the oil would never harden. In the old days, lead was added but it was found to be unhealthy so the industry uses what are called salts of Zinc, Cobalt or Manganese. In order to help mix these driers into the oil, the raw linseed oil was heated, but never boiled. Now, let me take a second to pontificate about BLO.

Of all the oil finishes on the market, BLO is the weakest and least resistant oil finish, period. In any test, it will allow water to pass through it into the surface below quicker than any other finish out there. In fact, this is considered an asset when linseed oil was used as a base for old, enamel house paints. The linseed oil was so porous that it allowed any water to escape that accumulated below the paint surface on the clapboards or shakes of your house. This kept the paint from lifting. Why, then, did the military see fit to use it on the stocks of rifles? Well it's applied differently. It was heated (not boiled) to get it thinner, then the stocks were literally dipped into it, allowing the warmed oil to penetrate deeply into the wood. A deep penetration of any oil will help repel water and debris as opposed to just laying it on the surface with a rag. It was also extremely cheap. Later on, however, tung oil was added to the mix at the Garand factory.

Tung Oil was used for centuries but only introduced to the West about a century ago. It, as opposed to BLO, provides the best oil protective finish on the market. Like BLO, "raw" Tung Oil has driers added to it to speed the drying time. It's lighter and doesn't darken the surface as much. It builds more quickly, too, requiring fewer coats to obtain the desired finish.

So, let me be perfectly clear about why I like Tung oil over BLO. When we apply blo to a stock, we never put enough on to make any difference, really. It doesn't penetrate enough to really do the job as I've stated above. It's just too porous and in order to really "work", we'd have to leave our stocks dipped into a bath of it for quite a while to really be effective. That being said, most of us do not put our service rifles through the kind of extremes that it saw in actual combat service. We baby them, actually. BLO, then, can provide an effective cosmetic appearance but will do little to provide the tough, mechanical protection the original BLO offered. Tung oil, otoh, does provide as good a mechanical and cosmetic finish as any oil can. That's why I like to use it over BLO.

Let me also introduce you to one final type of oil, some of you may actually be familiar with. So far we've discussed raw oil and "boiled" oil (oil with driers added). The third type is called "polymerized" oil. Ever hear of "Tru-Oil"?? It's actually polymerized oil. It's oil that, with the driers, has been heated in an oxygen-free environment to a temperature of about 500 degrees F. This polymerizes the oil which makes it cure very fast, become very hard, and really resists water and moisture penetration. This type of oil is NOTwhat we'd like to see on our rifles. It's what is commonly used for commercial rifle stocks like shotguns and the like. It's hard and glossy and inappropriate for Military weapons. It's also expensive.

So, I hope this helps put more into perspective the attributes/drawbacks of oils. If I had to select one of the three I've mentioned, it would have to be the tung oil. It builds fast, is water and moisture proof, and most importantly, it's removable so that refinishing or "tuning up" of a stock is fairly straight forward by just removing the surface finish and then reapplying it.

Let me also close by saying that of all the industries, the paint industry is considered the worst when it comes to labeling contents of a can. Terms are confusing, ambiguous, inaccurate, and outright misleading. Over the recent years, the paint industry has been under fire to improve the labeling of their products but it has a very long way to go.

[Bushbacker]

Found out that Behr no longer markets the tung oil finish but the same product is now available at some Ace Hardwares under the name True Tone 400 or T-400.

[Bushbacker]

Here's what it looks like. If you can't find it, I'm told you can call or e-mail Masterchem and they can tell you who stocks it in your area.

http://truetone.masterchem.com/tt/actnGeneric.do?zaction=pgTtOilBased

[Joe Tactical]

Great post bushbacker! Waterlox also makes a tung oil that works well. From what I have seen, I think it is comprable to the old Berh forumula, but I am not Cabinetman so don't quote me on that. ;)

I don't use stain anymore in favor of wood dye with a couple coats of tung oil on top. They dye can be found in any woodworking store and is superior in my humble opinion.

[Faulkner]

I have refinished dozens and dozens of USGI stocks using both Boiled Lindseed Oil and Tung Oil and would agree that Tung Oil is the better protectant of the two. Even so, I prefer to use BLO. I love the look and smell of a hand rubbed BLO finish on a M1 rifle, M1903, or M1 carbine stock. I usually cut mine 75/25 BLO to mineral spirits and get a super finish.

Here's a picture of a Garand stock I stripped and refinished with 8 or 9 hand rubbed coats of BLO.

http://pic50.picturetrail.com/VOL488/1124764/6541000/148472376.jpg