I just picked my first damascus shotgun. A couple of questions. I think the wood has some pretty good figure but is buried under years of grime. What’s the best way to clean it up? I typically just wipe down my barrels with an oil rag. Would waxing be better for damascus?
He wants to preserve the originality and just "clean it", not strip and refinish it. He's said so a couple times.
To the OP, I also would not get to ambitious with the boiled linseed oil until you clean the gunk off as I've explained. While any solvent or oil can loosen the dirt, dish soap in water will work better than creating a new finish out of the old, black dirt. Get it cleaned gently, then post a picture for us to reassess.
Generally, I never advocate stripping and refinishing antique wood (not on guns, colonial furniture, old string instruments). I know in the double gun world redoing wood is more acceptible than in the antique gun collecting world in most of America.
