I am working on a new project and am inletting my barreled action to my stock. This morning I noticed that some cutting oil left in the barrel from machining seeped out of the barrel and soaked into the bare wood of the stock.

What can I do to draw the oil out of the stock?

whiting, brownells sells it, or steam. there's a recent post on the board about raising dents, some of the methods described can remove oil, also.

Hi

Spray-on Oven cleaner from any supermarket works well.

Cheers

Doesn't sound like your oil spill is all that bad. Acetone or laquer thinner will probably get it .

the spray opn oven does work ,,,but it could burn the wood dry if you arent careful ,,wipe it off within a few minutes or so ...paul

For God's sake do not put oven cleaner on a gun stock. Oven cleaner contains sodium hydroxide and will damage wood. It is totally unnecessary. A little wipe with naptha or acetone should do fine. If deep in the wood, whiting/Brownells (powdered chalk/calcium carbonate) mixed with methyl alcohol and painted on will draw out the oil.

Oven cleaner is an extremely aggressive oil remover and must be used with care. It will remove metal finish. I would not experiment on varnish or poly urethane finishes that I cared about.

I have heard people claim that oven cleaner will soak into the stock, ruin the metal later, ruin the wood, but this is not consistent with my experience.

Must be 20 years now, but I dismantled this Long Branch and totally removed all greases and oils, and it was completely dunked in grease, with Easy Off Oven cleaner, a toothbrush, and plenty of water. I was careful to keep the oven cleaner off the metal parts as best I could.

I thoroughly hosed off all oven cleaner and let the wood parts dry.

A light sanding and handfuls of linseed oil, with a 20 year wait, and here are the results:

Based on my inspection of wood and metal parts I see nothing to substantiate claims that oven cleaner will damage wood, if it is promptly removed with a good water bath.

I did find that if you let oven cleaner dry on a wood surface, the wood is stained.

Thanks for the input guys. I am going to take a conservative approach and try Acetone, if that doesn't work I will try the whiting and if that does not work I will try the Easy Off.

It is a nice english walnut blank so I don’t really want to screw it up. So I will take it easy.

Thanks for all the replies.