I am reworking and old stock and want to remove some of the old oil, with which, the action area is saturated. i seem to remember that using something like flour, corn starch, maybe it was chalk; will do do the job. Any thoughts or help will be appriciated.

TED

You need whiting. It is available from art supply houses or from Brownell. Some also use oven cleaner, bleach, and other hazmat substances. A google search will tell all.

TSP works well and it not overly caustic and is cheap. It comes as a powder and you mix it with water and either soak the stock in it for 20 minutes as i do with military stocks, or make a paste from it. Oven cleaner works but is really caustic.

Diatomaceous earth works. It's a white powdery substance with huge absorption capacity. You can buy it at any pool supply store.

I had a stock from a Mex mauser that just oozed oil in the truck during the day.

I have a friend that owns a Auto parts store that sell alcohol for trucks in winter.
I used a large trash bag and used about 1-2 gallons and let soak over night,weighted with a brick.
The next day when looked at and removed the contents of the bag looked redish in color.

The stock was set in the shop to dry for several days and refinished.
Still looks good to this day.

The last post reminds me of the British Army veterans of 1914 and the events at Mons when they halted the Germans.

Some of these now old men said that they fired so much that the oil started to boil out of their rifle stocks and cause the back of their right hands to blister.

be careful not to dry the wood out so that it may crack ,this could happen with oven cleaner...paul

Thanks to all for the help. I think I will go with the whiting.

TED

Not sure if still available, but Olympics Oxy-deck cleaner that I bought at Lowes several years ago did a pretty good job at removing oil from a stock. Recall there was 2 types of it, one with a form of bleach in it. This is one I purchased...., careful this version will lighten the wood and assume the non-bleach version will not. But its a powder you mix with water. I'd heat the water, add the powder and apply it to stock with a stiff bristle brush with stock standing upright in my kitchen sink. After brushing it on throughly and waiting a few minutes, I'd rinse off wood and then wipe down stock usually with paper towels with the grain of wood. I'd reapply the solution maybe two more times. It worked pretty good for me removing the oil.

I'd tried numerous things to remove oil without any real success. Oxy-deck cleaner was only thing I tried that after application, would allow me to sand on the wood and get sawdust and not have your sandpaper gum up with oil soaked wood.

Because it is a product used for cleaning wood decks, its safe for wood. Like I wrote, used the bleach version of it, suggest using the non-bleach version of it since the bleach one might leave you with a wood color you will not want. FWIW, you can find Oxy type cleaners in the washing powder/cleaning aisle of a grocery store. Whether or not these will work as well, don't know, but they are certainly lower priced than the Olympic Oxy-deck cleaner I found at Lowes.

Heat will help get excessive oil out.
Wrap the stock in rags and leave it in hot sun in a black trash bag.
An industrial type method would be to heat to about 120 F in a vacuum chamber and slowly pull a vacuum on the stock.

A slow boil for 10 minutes in plain washing soda works very well. I've done this on more than a few stocks with no adverse effects. Depending on how oily the wood is, it may take more than one boil. I've done stocks so badly oil soaked that the solution looks like coffee after the first boil. John Farner told me about this method, he learned about it from an old English 'smith who degreased shotgun stocks this way.

Brownells sells a product SPECIFICALLY made to do what you wish. I have used it for decades and it does exactly what you want. It also doesn't saturate the stck with water or chemicals.

Try that first, it's what the pros use.

So, what's the product?

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
So, what's the product?

"Whitening" is the product. I think artshaw missed it's having been mentioned in the first few posts.