Just curious if anyone has tryed submerging a stock in tung or some other type of oil for some time to soak it in, then wiping off the surface oil after removing it from a bath?

Was standard procedure in the manufacturing of military arms in the US and many other nations for a long time.

If you want to go further put it in a pressure vessel full of oil. Then pull a vacuum to pull the air out of the wood. The air will escape the wood and bubble to the top.

Then cut off the vacuum. Then connect to compressed air. Add pressure and run up to about 60 psi. This will force the oil into the wood. Let it sit a while then slowly release the pressure and remove the stock.

"stabilizing " wood is also done by vacuum .It impregnates the wood with acrylic resin. IKt eliminates warping, cracking, and makes the wood basically weather proof ! Best thing for knife handles , handgun grips.

If you are using plain tung or linseed; don't bother. Linseed oil is the worst water repellant known, and tung is not much better. Modern urethane/oil varnishes are far and above those. Yes, we used plain or "boiled" linseed oil on our M1 and M14 stocks (I personally did that whilst in the Army), but for later national match stocks, those were varnished with some sort of spar or epoxy finish. For a good reason.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
If you are using plain tung or linseed; don't bother. Linseed oil is the worst water repellant known, and tung is not much better. Modern urethane/oil varnishes are far and above those. Yes, we used plain or "boiled" linseed oil on our M1 and M14 stocks (I personally did that whilst in the Army), but for later national match stocks, those were varnished with some sort of spar or epoxy finish. For a good reason.

I've read about the hot oil finish application for those rifle stocks, it doesn't sound like much fun. How long ago did they stop doing that?

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
If you are using plain tung or linseed; don't bother. Linseed oil is the worst water repellant known, and tung is not much better. Modern urethane/oil varnishes are far and above those. Yes, we used plain or "boiled" linseed oil on our M1 and M14 stocks (I personally did that whilst in the Army), but for later national match stocks, those were varnished with some sort of spar or epoxy finish. For a good reason.

So that's how they got an oil finish on the birch stock of my M1!

Yes, at the factory, the stocks were dipped in linseed oil. "Boiled, which really means nothing". It soaked in and sort of dried over the next few weeks. At the unit, the soldiers had gallon cans of linseed oil that were rubbed on the stocks whenever they were used. That, too, was rubbed on/off and dried after a while. But the resultant finish is not water proof at all; it does repel water to some extent but not very well. That finish dates back to the first military weapons we had. It was fun; it was part of cleaning the weapon. Took one minute or less.
Hot oil finish? Sometimes combined with shellac; still a poor finish but the shellac made it shine. No one does that any more if they really want a waterproof finish.

quote:

Was standard procedure in the manufacturing of military arms in the US and many other nations for a long time.

Yes, here in UK too. In boiled linseed oil which is a distinctly different thing from linseed oil that is applied hot.

Don't know what exactly the "boiled" bit does except that the unboiled RAW linseed oil is the sort that can sponataneuosly combust in rags if there is enough local heat.

I heard veterans of the British Army "mad minute" at Mons in 1914 (their recollections were recorded) that said they developed blisters form the oil coming back out of the stock, hot too, at Mons with the hot weather and rapid fire.

I know that from my own experience with an SMLE that with limited rapid fire in competetion it did indeed start to ooze from the wrist of the butt.

Even if you seal the wood with epoxy, it won't lift off the surface; You don't see gym floors with the finish coming off and that is a tough finish. Your lifted varnish is not from moisture trying to get OUT and the term "varnish" can mean anything; they aren't all the same. It let in too much moisture in the first place. Modern finishes with urethane in them, with some type of oil, are usually the best compromise of ease of finish and protection.

I prefer 10w40,at 76 degrees F, 28psi.

If you are only getting 28 psi, you need a new oil pump.

two interesting articles on finish (not gunstocks)

http://www.popularwoodworking....heir-history-and-use

http://www.woodcentral.com/russ/finish7.shtml

Kinda' sounds like we're looking for that "easier" CNC method of stock finishing to replace elbow grease and skilled hands.

If You Believe In Unicorns And Sorcery:

"Boiled" linseed refers to tha addition of dryers. Raw linseed will never dry properly it just get gummy.

Packing more oil into the wood just makes a poorly finished stock that oozes in the summer heat.

I hope one of these days the linseed oil finish myth and colossal joke disappears.

All it takes is a piece of pipe with a cap welded or threaded on one end and a closure for the other. So simple even a cave peasant....

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Just checked my tools...don't have a pressure vessel..surprise surprise! Us peasants have to slop on all the sealer possible..I use Ship n' Shore sealer...very penetrating. But if I use alkenet root, I use it mixed with linseed oil...Yes! linseed oil!

Let dry for about a week, then start with the ship n shore.. seems to set up and dry the linseed oil in the process.

Water PROOF is not somethilng you really want...moisture will escape from the wood even if it has to lift off the finish. to do so. Something breatheable like the modified oils do the job nicely and can be easily touched up

I don't know. I tried submerging a stock in tung oil for weeks and it never absorbed any of it. Maybe the pressure vessel would work but I'm worried that before any oil has a chance to get in the fiberglass will begin to delaminate.

I read in Roy Dunlaps Gunsmithing book, that a number of American soldiers serving in the Pacific during WWII who were allergic to Tung oil, would come up with blisters after handling captured Japanese rifles as the stocks were treated with Tung Oil.

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
I don't know. I tried submerging a stock in tung oil for weeks and it never absorbed any of it. Maybe the pressure vessel would work but I'm worried that before any oil has a chance to get in the fiberglass will begin to delaminate.

Have you tried raising the grain on your fiberglass stocks before you dip them in the oil? Open the pores up first maybe? Never know until you tries dontchaknow !

Linseed oil - requires 'driers'. Linseed over time will oxydize and polymerize providing a moe durable and water resistant finish !

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Just checked my tools...don't have a pressure vessel..surprise surprise! Us peasants have to slop on all the sealer possible..I use Ship n' Shore sealer...very penetrating. But if I use alkenet root, I use it mixed with linseed oil...Yes! linseed oil!

Let dry for about a week, then start with the ship n shore.. seems to set up and dry the linseed oil in the process.

Water PROOF is not somethilng you really want...moisture will escape from the wood even if it has to lift off the finish. to do so. Something breatheable like the modified oils do the job nicely and can be easily touched up

Duane, didn't you post a nice summary some place on this site once about how you finish a stock using the alkanet and the ship n shore? can you post that again or direct me to it?

Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
I don't know. I tried submerging a stock in tung oil for weeks and it never absorbed any of it. Maybe the pressure vessel would work but I'm worried that before any oil has a chance to get in the fiberglass will begin to delaminate.

Have you tried raising the grain on your fiberglass stocks before you dip them in the oil? Open the pores up first maybe? Never know until you tries dontchaknow !

No, I haven't tried that but I will from now on. You seem pretty knowledgeable. Maybe you can help me out with the stain. For some reason, no matter how concentrated a mix I use, this stock just will not take it up.

[/QUOTE]No, I haven't tried that but I will from now on. You seem pretty knowledgeable. Maybe you can help me out with the stain. For some reason, no matter how concentrated a mix I use, this stock just will not take it up.[/QUOTE]


Aww, it's these new fangled, biodegradable, earth safe, greeny bunny humper crap that they make these days. They are all so worried that the stuff might get into the environment and kill off a few hundred thousand Spotted Woofer Wiffels, that they forget to make the shit WORK.
Back when I was a kid, pizza and stain would stick when you threw them against a wall. I won't get into the baby shit we had back then, but let-me-tell-you-son there was a reason we invented disposable diapers ! ! ! !

Yep, I was raised on Tuinal a cancer cartigen or whatever using Flecto..Used it in my coffee and my gunstocks just to see if I got cancer..Made it to 81 and still miss that stuff!


On the real side, most finishes work if the finisher knows his stuff! I have never soaked a stock, and never will..Weatherby dipped stocks and so did Browning Im told and those finishes looked like spider webs in a few years, they crazed...

Fill the pores with filler of some kind and use a modified Urathane, tung oil base or Linseed, both work IMO...Spar varnish and linseed is a great finish...1/3 Tung or Linseed, 1/3 Formbys as its hot, and 1/3 Mineral spirits is a great finish. If you doing a hunting rifle that's going to be punished and you ain't skeered of Tuinal, fill it, spray with with Flecto, then wipe it all off and let it sit for 12 hours, and repeat as many times as you want, the wiping off with long sweeps and most of the finish is the secret or this slow process that takes forever with that water thin stuff and many coats, but it is the most durable finish Ive ever used, it was number one by a long shot on my Idaho roof test, that exposed it to heat, below zero temps, snow and rain for 3 years and some months on walnut 2x3x 1/2 inch thick sticks..High gloss finishes came in second but I could care less about high gloss, its like carrying a mirror on your chest, when your hunting.

What Im say is its more about application and wood prepreation than whatcha use..Good properly cured wood with a properly laid out grain structure goes a long ways in how a finish looks and works IMO...but Im not sure I ever used the same stuff more than two or three times, can't learn anything that way, and this stuff is getting better all the time..My latest is GunSavR by Brownells, its easy to apply and sure is fast and nice stuff form all respects....

The old Browning finishes on the T Bolts and Safaris was actually a hand rubbed lacquer finish Ray. The stuff is more brittle than glass. If you poke it with a pin it will blow a crater in the finish 1/32nd in diameter. Horrible stuff. It used to crack and craze as the wood expanded and contracted with moisture levels to the point that it looked like some, pot smoking spider had shit all over it.

I'm not sure about the old original Weatherbys, but for the last - - - - - I'm gonna say 30 years Weatherby has been using a product called Fullerplast Clear Epoxy paint made by Gemini. Weatherby actually had a problem with it about 20 years back were some cowboy was putting to much hardener into the mix and it was getting brittle and finish cracking like the old lacquer stocks used to. I was distributing Weatherby parts to all of the Canadian warranty depots at that time and we got back about 100 that had to be refinished. I contracted the work out to a couple local companies to refinish them but one outfit couldn't get the paint in Canada. I had to import the stuff for them which was a hell of a struggle as the Canadian gubberment had it on the "TOXIC NUCLEAR WASTE" list and it had to be trucked up. Seems to me the shipping for 5 gallons of it was about $600. We never told Weatherby but we later swapped out the Fullerplast for a Canadian product called Endura which is pretty much the same carcinogenic crap. In my dealings with Gemini I also learned that Fender guitars were painted with the exact same stuff. Not that anyone cares to know that.

Ray: "I was raised on Tuinal"
this explains everything!

From Wikipedia:

Tuinal is the brand name of a combination drug composed of two barbiturate salts (secobarbital sodium and amobarbital sodium) in equal proportions. Tuinal was introduced as a sedative medication in the late 1940s by Eli Lilly.

Ill be darned, how did it get in Flecto! sez so on the can!! and I was at a meeting of the Custom gun guild some years ago and one of the better gunbuilder was giving a demo of how to and said Tuinal was a carcenagen and gives ya cancer.

Ray, you probably used Toluene. We had a 5 gallon can of it in the garage when I was a kid. Used it as a paint solvent and for cleaning up engine parts (with bare hands and on a rag). It'll probably knock 20 years off my life.

quote:

Originally posted by ForrestB:
Ray, you probably used Toluene. We had a 5 gallon can of it in the garage when I was a kid. Used it as a paint solvent and for cleaning up engine parts (with bare hands and on a rag). It'll probably knock 20 years off my life.

All the rich kids had Carbon tetrachloride to wash their hands with. But, we make do with what we have to kill the hell outta ourselves!

My Mother was good friends with the local dry cleaners and they used to give her gallons of carbon tet; good stuff. for cleaning anything. And we would walk down to the State Road Garage and they would fill up gallon milk bottles for us, with AGENT ORANGE. One gallon concentrate of it would make a 55 gallon drum full of weed killer. None of that stuff is really bad for you; this is all just a liberal conspiracy against us.

Yeah we used to buy DDT by the 45 gallon drum and ammonium nitrate fertilizer by the truck load. Some of the old timers used to buy surplus 37mms with the caps removed in Kalispell Montana and cut the noses off and recycle the powder for use in their belted magnums. A compressed load of that powder in a 300 Wby would give very nice, cheap 308 or 30-06 velocities. Hard to get rolling on cold days even with magnum primers though. The 37s had the detonators pulled but they were still charged with TNT. But without the caps they were considered inert and harmless. Try dropping a case of those suckers on the counter at Canadian customs and see what sort of response you get today!

My father worked for the Des Moines City Railway, electric trolley cars. they used carbon tetrachloride to dry out the motors when they would ice up in the winter. Just spray it on until the water was gone.
He died of bone cancer, his doctor said it was a direct result of the tetrachloride. We also used DDT to dust refuges in the camps for lice and such.
Ever wonder what is next?

It's a foregone conclusion that the creation of life is responsible for 100% of the reported deaths. But, there is no point in rushing things ! You get there quickly enough naturally.