The lemon oil treatment is definitely helping the stock but now I'm debating stripping and refinishing it.
Started working on disassembling/cleaning the bolt when I got called away for a honey-do.
So should I or shouldn't I strip and refinish? I'm no expert on woodworking so any advice would be helpful.
7 comments:
My vote is to strip and refinish. Here's why: it's not a historically significant piece where a collector would want the original finish (I assume. You're gonna shoot these things, right?). So, I would make 'em purdy. YMMV.
I stripped a badly chipped M44 stock down to bare wood (0000 steel wool and mineral sprits) and then gave it several hand-rubbed coats of boiled linseed oil (the ol' USGI treatment). It came out one of the prettiest milsurps I own.
Hand-rub a generous amount of BLO on, let it sit for 30 minutes, wipe of the excess, then let it dry overnight. Repeat on a daily basis for as long as you can stand to. I find 5-7 treatments is usually adequate, and LOVE the finish it leaves. I was never a fan of the ComBloc shellac, so I guess I should reveal that bias.
Oven cleaner works very well to strip the old finish, and not damage the wood.
Sounds kinda familiar. I've cleaned up several old Turk Mausers, and despite the snake of cosmoline that I shoved out of the bores, the first few shots from each -always- smoked a little.
Got a couple rifles that were refinished with boiled linseed oil and tung oil after the shellac was removed. It's a nice effect.
I think the guys at the Box O' Truth refinished a few Mosins a while back, you might want to go look. They came out nice looking.
Crusty: I've seen their post on it. Very nice. That's kind of what I'm thinking of doing.
That's where I heard about using oven cleaner to strip the wood.
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