I have a lever action rifle buttstock that seems to have more oil in it than a crankcase.

God only knows how much gun oil this poor piece of black walnut has soaked up over the years.

After removing the old finish, I've soaked it in acetone and lacquer thinner and coated it with calcium carbonate and cleaned it off several times, but oil keeps seeping out of it where the wood abuts the action.

I continue to soak it and apply heat to it with a heat gun and it just keeps bleeding oil.

It is getting better, but man is this process slow.

Am I missing some kind of short cut that I could use to speed this up or is it just wash, rinse and repeat until clean?

Thanks.

I am never in a hurry on things like this.
I would put it in the sun and whenever I think of it, wipe it off.

No short cut when the oil is that deep, but I soak them in TSP in hot water for 30 minutes. See how that works; then repeat if necessary.

In the shop, when we get one like that, we first bury the oil soaked end into a bucket of dry-sorb oil absorbent granules and leave it for two weeks. Then do the whiting and acetone. When you think you have it all out, let it sit for a week and see if any more comes out. Repeat as needed. Before finishing, seal the wood with thinned shellac. Oil won't go through shellac. It will let your finish dry properly.

In lieu of oil dry, fine saw dust will work, too, as an absorbent.

I have simmered some nasty milsurps in washing soda and water. The water will look like coffee. A couple times usually does it, although it might never all come out.

I see you are up in new England. I'm also guessing it is cold there. Wrap the stock with paper towels, then aluminum foil. Set it in the sun on the dashboard of your truck and let it ooze. Clean off when the sun sets. Do it for as long as you can stand. It took years for it to get to that point so it will take time to get it out.

TSP is Trisodium Phosphate. It will work better than anything else. Just trying to save you some time.

An old standby is to make a paste of whiting ( from paint stores) with a solvent like acetone, lacquer thinner,etc.

Paint it on, let dry and the whiting will absorb the oil.. brush off and repeat as needed.

It does wsork!

Wonder if a vacuum chamber could pull the oil out. Something like a piece of PVC pipe with cap on one end and a screw plug on the other. Use a vacuum pump to keep negative pressure on it.

Just brain storming…

Great advice and I will follow as much of it as possible, since none of it seems inconsistent and this is apparently going to be a slow process.

The weather this time of year does preclude any assistance from Mother Nature. It's always below freezing and right now it's 28 degrees F, there are several inches of snow on the ground and it's still snowing. The sun is pretty much useless to us and will be for a couple of months.

But I will keep on plugging away with some of the other suggested methods for as long as it takes.

It will give me lots of time to curse the memory of whoever did this!

Many thanks for the help.

I do love AR.

If you are doing this indoors, mix your whiting in 91% isopropyl alcohol as it is least injurious of the solvents.

Gun owners tend to follow the Goldilocks and the three bears model: No lube, just right lube and way frickin too much lube. We get a lot of double guns in the shop soaked like yours.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:
Great advice and I will follow as much of it as possible, since none of it seems inconsistent and this is apparently going to be a slow process.

The weather this time of year does preclude any assistance from Mother Nature. It's always below freezing and right now it's 28 degrees F, there are several inches of snow on the ground and it's still snowing. The sun is pretty much useless to us and will be for a couple of months.

But I will keep on plugging away with some of the other suggested methods for as long as it takes.

It will give me lots of time to curse the memory of whoever did this!

Many thanks for the help.

I do love AR.

Brownell's makes a "whiting" powder that made a 450/400 stock look like new, I packed/buried the stocks in a cardboard box of damp whiting for a week or two or? times until wood was basically white, turned out beautiful..Give it time to dry throughly then fill and finish in Linseed oil as doubles must be finished in the" horrible " Linseed, not to mention hundreds od old doubles have lasted their life finished in such.

Thanks, again.

One thing I learned in this process is that the whiting sold by Brownells and generally used is nothing more than calcium carbonate, which is used in home brewing beer and wine-making and can be bought in generic form more cheaply than the Brownells version.

I also learned that mixing it with acetone or lacquer thinner and then trying to brush it on is not really workable, because the solvents evaporate too quickly.

I will try Bobster's idea of using 91% isopropyl alcohol for the next treatment!

I will also try a dunking in TSP dissolved in hot water.

I'm starting to feel like an alchemist, but this stuff is incredibly stubborn.

I use the 'Whiting Powder' as well.
It takes quite a while but it works the best IMO.
It can takes weeks to completely remove all of the oil.
Have some other work to keep you busy while the coated wood just hangs out undisturbed somewhere.

Every so often check the Whiting surface and if it has changed color to a yellow , it's soaking up oil as it weeps to the surface.

Brush it off when you think it's absorbed about as much as the coating can take and just apply another and set it aside.

A paint brush works well for the brushing/removal betw coatings.
No need to rinse it here, just apply another slurry coating.

I use cheap rubbing alcohol in the miz instead of the often called for acetone.

I think most get the feeling that the acetone in the mix will help remove the oil. But in fact it's only there to mix the Whiting into a slurry/paste for application. Then you want it to evaporate fairly quickly to leave the Whiting as a hard crust on the wood.
That quick evap Acetone never has much of a chance to do anything with the oil in the wood in this process. It's gone in a few seconds.

Alcohol does the same purpose, it takes a couple of minutes instead of seconds to evaporate,,but whats the hurry with the wood being set aside for a week and more.

I use the brushing along with warm running water to remove the last coating. Some will still remain caked into crevises which will require a bit more attention to pick out.
I then take the wet stock and give it a bath in Oxalic Acid (wood bleach) to even up the color.
That's warmed up as well in the MWave.
Nothing fancy, a couple Tbs of Oxalic Acid to a quart of water in a glass jar and warmed for 45seconds. Slosh it onto the already wet wood w/ paint brush.
Rinse it wrll when complete and handle the now very wet wood carefully as it will dent and bruise easily. Let it dry naturally. No forced drying. It won't take that long
to dry by itself. But I let them hang another couple days before starting finishing.


Here's a Purdey double with an awful oil soaked and cracked stock.
This one took 5 or 6 weeks to completely rid it of oil.
Some nice wood underneath that sludge.









Whiting Powder is powdered chaulk,,nothing more,,calcium carbonate as pointed out.
Several sources of it w/o paying Brownells inflated middleman repackaging and resale prices.

Try Easy Off oven cleaner ...
Worked for me on a same oil soaked Win 94

I have also used oven cleaner on the many old military stocks I have restored; however, it is highly toxic and will burn your skin.
And here in the winter, TSP is mixed with water and has no smell, so can be used indoors. In fact I have a black, oil soaked Mauser stock that I will be doing this week; come over and I'll show you how.
I use long plastic plant containers for long stocks.

Regardless of what method you use, it will take a while in my short experience. I did read something somewhere about vacuum packing it. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I have seen some stocks/wood take on a greenish tinge after using oven cleaner.

Oven Cleaner is Lye.
It works because Lye turns grease and oil to 'soap'.
That rinses off the wood easily with water.

The problem is that the OvenCleaner/Lye doesn't penetrate very deeply to get at the oil down deep. It only turns the surface oil and that just below the surface for you.

Immediate results look great usually, but there can be a stock full of oil yet to be pulled from the wood.

That down deep oil will weep to the surface on it's own and start to show itself as black spots on the nice clean surface.

The off color tones common on the wood after using OvenCleaner can be cleaned up with a bath in Wood Bleach (oxolic acid).
Don't use Laundry Bleach, though it will lighten the wood color and somewhat even things up as well.

The Laundry Bleach has Sodium Hypochlorite(sp?) in it and is a very agressive rust maker.
Any residue left in the wood leaves the wood to metal contact in the inletting later to become a rust and pitting problem.
Especially if humidity becomes high and/or some water gets into the inlets (rain/Snow) and starts to generate the process.

A Wood Bleach bath will leave the surface a nice even color and just a bit lighter in tone than the orig. Just right for prep work and a nice surface to apply a little stain if wanted. Most any dark spots on the wood will be removed as well with the process.

The deep down oil has to be slowly drawn to the surface and removed/absorbed from it.
You can sometimes block some of it from reaching the surface after doing a couple of quick cycles with Whiting or Oven Cleaner.

A coating like shellac can seal the surface quite well as stated already. Then get a coat of finish to dry on that surface.

But the oil underneath your new finish will likely win over time and push the finish off.

It's all in how much time and effort you want to put into the project.

Thanks very much.

That Purdey stock is more a resurrection than a refinishing.

Amazing!

Wow. Lots of options. I'd probably do something simple like a vinegar submerge and soak overnight followed by a quick scrub with a stiff tooth brush and hanging up to drain all day. Then rinse, repeat. Acetic acid eats grease and oil. Right?

I would think vacuum packing the wood might run the risk of moving the oil in the wrong direction since the vascular tissue runs from end to end. Now, if you could devise a way to enclose the soaked end and pack it with whiting, you could draw and hold vacuum and pull out the oil. That would be problematic to say the least.

It took a while for that oil to soak in and it takes a while to draw it out. Whiting + heat is tried and true, as is solvent soaking. I use a combination of both. You just have to be patient. Like I said, when you think you are done, you likely are not. Let it rest, then repeat. If you do this a couple of times without seeing oil, then you have it. Brush off the whiting, and solvent wash. Get some finish on it so it can cure in the dry wood in case a little oil comes back.

quote:

Originally posted by eny:
Regardless of what method you use, it will take a while in my short experience. I did read something somewhere about vacuum packing it. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

A true story: knew an experienced gunsith who also did caustic bluing...Had a M-21 fore end REALLY oil soaked, so he threw it in the de- greasing tank !

Got the oil out alright, but I never saw a fore dend with so many twists and angles upon drying.

Musta been a brain fart

I have cleaned up oil soaked stocks using Acetone and denatured alcohol. I soaked it Acetone for a week took it out and let it dry then put into the Alcohol for a week and then went back to the Acetone after removing form Alcohol. Took about 3 cycles on one really oily stock. The nice thing using these two chemicals is that it doesn't damage the wood. All the inletting stays in good shape. I would not use rubbing Alcohol that has water in it or any water based cleaners on wood. Could cause inletting to swell and wood to swell and warp. Any water based cleaning would also feather the wood alot making refinishing more time consuming.

For those who want to use a solvent; use Xylene; that is what I use for WW2 Jeep painting, and it is banned in 5 states because it will eat your liver, so you know it actually works. $17 a gallon.

Another one for TSP. Years back I refinished an old front door on a house that had been oil soaked around the hinge area by over generous lubing through the years. I was surprised at how well it turned out. Any hardware store carry’s it.

on oven cleaner -- avoid it on aluminum - say a motorcycle/atv engine, or your car's engine, as it's a "life hack" to go to the dollar store and get a couple cans of that for less than a can of engine degreaser at the autoparts store --

sure, it will get the crude off.. and etch the aluminum PDQ, even if you rinse it off --

I'd are concerned about using vinegar. Acetic acid is corrosive to iron/steel and aluminum.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
For those who want to use a solvent; use Xylene; that is what I use for WW2 Jeep painting, and it is banned in 5 states because it will eat your liver, so you know it actually works. $17 a gallon.

Solvents ending in "ene" must be used VERY carefully.... from a health standpoint

The stock is coated with whiting and hanging in an out of the way spot in my shop.

The whiting is already yellow and getting yellower.

I keep reminding myself that patience is a virtue.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
For those who want to use a solvent; use Xylene; that is what I use for WW2 Jeep painting, and it is banned in 5 states because it will eat your liver, so you know it actually works. $17 a gallon.

Solvents ending in "ene" must be used VERY carefully.... from a health standpoint

or -tone

mythel-eythl-keytone MEK -

CleMar. Industrial strength acetic acid is corrosive. DO NOT USE THAT! Vinegar from the grocery store is only a 5% (on average) solution of acetic acid and rinses easily with water.
Vinegar works slow magic on rusty iron and steel too. It dissolves iron oxide quite well over time without pitting the underlying iron or steel. You can leave submerged for 4 or 5 days while brushing it with a stiff brush once a day.
Rinse off with water.

quote:

Originally posted by ClaMar:
I'd are concerned about using vinegar. Acetic acid is corrosive to iron/steel and aluminum.

I have always been concerned about water on a cleaned piece of stock wood. we work so hard to REMOVE all the moisture from the wood and keep it dry and the finish is supposed to maintain that so that do we do, we soak it to refinish..just saying??