doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Lin-Speed

Most of all the trade secret finishes had linseed oil in them.

A good mixture is 1/3 linseed oil, 1/3 spar varnish and 1/3 mineral spirits. You can also do 1/3 tung oil (pure) not Minwax or Formby's, 1/3 linseed oil, 1/3 mineral spirits. Want a harder finish use more varnish (tung oil or spar varnish.
The better linseed oil to buy is Flax Seed Oil sold in Walmart, stores like that that have vitamins, etc. There are no additives to it.

Put on thin enough, by the next day it should be tack free.
Spar varnish alone takes up to 3 months or longer to thoroughly cure. I used this for refinishing bamboo fly rods.

I have used the mixture described by JDW. It works as well, or better, than any of the commercial products that have been described. The only caveat I have experienced is that it takes time and many coats: Rub it in by hand, let it dry, and re-coat. Many, many coats, with 24 hours between each application. With a little patience you can create just about any final finish you desire.

A gun stock, no matter the quality, is still a piece of wood. If you do much woodworking you quickly learn that creating a piece of furniture is just 50% of the job and applying a finish can be a real pain in the neck. A gun stock is easy to work with. Try applying a "hand rubbed" finish to a complex table or chair. It won't be long before you start searching for a suitable alternative. Lots of luck! I haven't found a substitute for attention to detail and patience yet, but I'll keep trying.

R.

oldr31, you are right about the furniture. I French polished this table, it is 22" across. This is about the biggest I would attempt to try using this method.
The thing that is nice about French polishing, the spot you left is dry now and you can keep going and going.

Three part "oil" is great for gunstock and furniture. I apply a thin coat to sanded ( at 220 0r 320 grit)or bare wood. Then using wet/dry 220 grit paper and sanding block I wet sand to oil with the grain. The object is to create a slurry. The wet slurry is the wiped cross grain with a clean cloth. The sanding block makes the rubbing easier. The objective is to force some of the slurry into the wood's pores. Let dry OVN and repeat next with w/d 320 grit and new clean cloth. Ditto on day 3 but with w/d 400. Unless the wood is very dry/old & porous that should do it. Apply any top coat you are used to using. I like Spar Urithane, semi-gloss.

I only use Tru-oil nowadays when I want a glossy finish. After I have filled the grain and completed the finish using proper finish, I then put Tru-oil on my bare hands and rub it in. I have never found a glove or a cloth that will work properly or as using the bare hand will. Then I struggle to get that sticky stuff off my hands. Neat Clorox works best.

I too mix my own. 50/50 pure tung oil/Epifanes spar varnish. I apply it only after first filling the pores with either straight spar varnish or epoxy, sanded back to bare wood and repeating until all pores are filled. Then I start oiling by wipe/rub on-wipe/rub off, leaving the surface "dry". The next day I'll scuff it with 600-800x, and repeat. Several coats is all it takes, determined by when it stops soaking into the wood, followed by a waxing with a quality paste wax.

I quit messing with Linspeed after watching the wood surface turn to mush when caught out in a rain storm. May not have been the fault of the Linspeed, per se, and it kind of soured me on oil finishes in general. Now I restrict their use to only those "safe queens" that may never see inclement weather. For the rest I use straight spar varnish, 8-10 coats rubbed out with 320x between coats, final coat rubbed out with rottenstone to cut the gloss, and then waxed to bring up a soft luster.