What is a good home remedy for soaking the oil out of stock and forearm?
I've read on this board that simply putting the wood outside in the sun will draw the oil out, is that correct?
And do you have to refinish it after soaking the oil out?

I've been told, but never used, that whiting will work - apply a paste and keep removing/renewing.

I have soaked an oily forend in acetone - used several changes. The oil came out. If you do this the wood needs to be refinished which means stripping and starting over but the oil will be gone.

http://www.lcsmith.org/faq/oil.html

I would like to add one point to Drews excellent link with solution(s) to this problem. I have found that an initial dousing with Easy Off* Oven cleaner with an oil finished stock can speed up this process. The cleaner seems to leach a lot of the oil out of the wood in very little time. When I have done this (outdoors) I've sprayed the stock with cleaner and set it out in the sun and wiped the leached oil off with paper towels. This process can of course be repeated but I would finish with either whiting or acetone then go to alcohol.
*Or any other brand.
Jim

I have read on other forums that using oven cleaner is not a good idea. It is a caustic cleaner that apparently penetrates deep into the wood hurting the wood fibers. Supposedly it is hard to get it out of the wood and can cause problems later on. Don't know how true this is, just what I have read.

The only time I tried the acetone and followed by alcohol remedy the stock became so dried out after the alcohol all dried that it split horribly at the wrist. I left it laying on the bench for several days to thoroughly dry, and when I returned it had split all by itself. Luckily, it was a cheap project gun, but it made me "gun shy" of this treatment. Pun intended. Nothing is foolproof, I guess, , and many others have used this treatment successfully with no problem. Just thought I'd offer that personal experience.

SRH

That's the first time I heard about the wood splitting after acetone but in retrospect after the acetone treatment I found the forend kind of dry and "balsa-like" or maybe more like a cheap new-growth pine.

Maybe the solution is to soak it in linseed oil after acetone?

I suspect that the stock had some internal stresses in the grain, and when it became so dry, the stresses just overcame the integrity of the wood fibers. I can think of no other explanation.

It showed no signs of cracking or splitting before the oil removal treatment. I clamped and glued it back with a cyanoacrylate and recut the checkering over it, but there is still an ugly dark line revealing the break.

SRH

I probably average two stocks per month for customers......I use lacquer thinner then acetone in a plastic bath with an air tight lid, slightly larger than the average stock........

1. Weight the stock in the bath so it is submerged (I use a brass 1" solid rod 8" long for this), leave 24 hours....remove and let air dry.....if oil remains, submerge again for 2-3 hours.....remove and let air dry....repeat this process as needed to remove 100% of the old impregnated oil.....clean the checkered areas lightly and gently as needed with a small brass brush as the dip process proceeds........

2. For a second cleaning bath, use a second plastic sealed bath only this time filled with acetone.....(or use the same plastic sealed bath after cleaning).....the stocks usually sink in acetone but I weight them with the same brass rod anyway, leave an hour or two with the lid secure...remove and air dry, which is fast with acetone.....check for any oil bleed.....then repeat as necessary, including back to the lacquer thinner bath if need be.......then leave overnight in a warm enviornment and watch for any oil bleed......

3. Stocks will not crack with this process.....I never use alcohol or oven cleaner....... The stock should now be ready to repair-epoxy-pin-clamp or stain and refinish, rechecker, steam dents or whatever.......patience is the key here......

4. If you have a stock with a modern polyurethane finish, like some Beretta's and Brownings, then you will need to use aircraft paint stripper first to remove the poly coating....




Best,

Thanks for the information guys, great suggestions but its a old gun built in 1935 and I really don't want to take it apart to soak it, any ideas?

I've tried Easy Off. It will remove the oil in the stock, it keeps weeping oil for a while, and you have to remove it. I can't tell any damage to the stock, but then the stock I used it on was a P 14 Enfield, and it had LOTS of grease in it. It looked fine for a miltary rifle.

How it would work on a fine gun, I don't know. I think you'd have to do a lot of work on regaining the grain of the stock and possibly filling the pores. But as for removing grease and oil, it does a fine job.

If it's really oil soaked, and not just dirty externally, I don't think you have much choice but to remove the wood and get the oil out. Eventually, the wood will become soft and punky and much more prone to splitting from recoil. It isn't a very big deal to remove the wood on most guns.

I usually start with a scrubbing with household ammonia because ammonia will turn the oils into a soap which is water soluble. Rinse this mess off with plenty of hot water and allow the wood to dry before solvent soaking. This gets a lot of crud out in the beginning. By doing this first step with cheap ammonia, you get more mileage out of expensive solvents.

As PA24 notes, oil bleed can be a problem because the oil is often deeply impregnated into the wood. I've done some very bad ones with low oven heat with the wood wrapped in paper towels followed by solvent soaks until I thought the oil was gone. If I set the wood aside for several weeks and then get back to it for further repairs or refinishing, I sometimes find more oil has migrated to the surface. Because of this, I think it's best to do any crack glueing as quickly as possible after the solvent is evaporated.

As an experiment I once put a gun stock in the dish washer. It came out very clean and bleached looking ,but stained down well.Not a thing I would recommend except in certain circumstances ,plus the grief I got from my wife about the smell of oil that lingered in the machine for days.

treblig1958, there is no way to remove all of the oil from the wood without disassembly. None, nada, neyt. Sorry. 30 years of refinishing gunstocks for others has revealed inletting of older guns can be stubborn and "hold" oil for a long time. Some even get tougher than PA24's time line. I have just finished a Blair SxS which took four months to stop bleeding oil in the head area. Each time I thought it was gone...black spots reappeared. One just has to keep at it until it is gone.

I have done the acetone soak on MANY guns. Maybe it was wrong, but there are so many that I did and in 10yrs. I see no damage under the Tru-Oil finish I applied as soon as I could. I have a tub I bought from the Dollar General that I can place the stocks in. Fill up the remained areas with more small plastic containers so I don't need to buy as much acetone and let them soak. Drain off all the old oily acetone, to reuse for other projects and do a final soak in new, clean acetone. I am happy with my results.

I have had good luck scrubbing with Murphys Oil Soap before soaking. Gets a lot of the dirt and a fair amount of the finish off. Scrub the checkering with a toothbrush.
CHAZ

Genelang:
That's a good point and I tend to use oven cleaner on military riles more than any others because there's usually a combination of deep oils and cosmolene you're dealing with and they can be hard to get out. I've never had a problem after the fact with oven cleaner. If this was a problem just imagine the effect it would have on you with any missed residue in your oven after cleaning!
Jim

Thanks gentlemen, that's what I was afraid of, disassembly. I'm going to try and clean the outside with Murphy's oil soap first and if that doesn't work take it to a gunsmith for cleaning. I remember taking apart a gun this old before and ended up with buggered screws. I'll pay the bill if I have too letting someone else take it apart.

An old post but I thought I'd add my new experience with Murphys Oil used to clean up furniture on old guns.



Picture taken just after I walked out of the gunshop.

About a month ago I bought a W. Richards 12 gauge side lever. (Ok, I know it's not a Westley Richards but it was complete, solid, locked up tight on face, matching numbers and looks to me like Birmingham proof marks. And the price was right.)

I haven't done anything with it but today I took it over to the gun club as a show and tell. One old curmudgeon told me to use Murphys Oil to clean the crud off the wood. I tried it this afternoon and was amazed at the results. I used burlap cloth on the thick spots, a fiber bristle brush on checkering and scrubbed hard with old terrycloth rag.

Hanging the stock in an oven and slowly bringing the temp up will pull out any deep in oil. I had one that the oil was running out of the head and left a puddle on the sheet under the stock.

I only do this if multiple acetone soaks does not remove the oil and it continues to come to the surfsce.

I too have used acetone to remove oil from stock heads. Many times i have seen people cleaning shotguns, and squirting oil into the firing pin holes in the breech face, thinking they are doing good in maintaining their shotgun.
Recently i was given a nice old sidelock side by side, the stock head wasn't too bad with oil, a relatively quick soak with acetone did the trick. I have used this method several times and never had a problem with cracks, unless the acetone had caused previously glued splits to reappear.
Some people in this thread have mentioned using oven cleaner, if an oven cleaner contains caustic soda (i am not sure what its called in the usa) it will darken hardwood including walnut markedly.

I have used the acetone process on several stocks with god results. However I was in a musical instrument repair shop where they fix and refinish a lot of stringed instruments i.e. violins, cello, stand up bass. They were abhorred that I would soak a fine piece of wood in acetone. They use ozone heat lamps to draw out the oil saying they would not introduce any other substance in case it warped the wood or altered the tone of the instrument. They offered to do one of my gun stocks but I haven't taken them up on it yet.

Tamid, i used an electric heat gun, the type you use to strip paint off wood. I used it on its low setting and as the oil oozed out, i wiped it away with a rag damp with white spirit or thinners.

It certainly worked well.

Curious ...I can't help but wonder why people over oil their violins when they take them out after birds ,I mean a little will go a long ways ...

Seriously though , nice wood is nice wood ,but wood used in instrument making is not the same wood used in gunstocks nor is the abuse it receives over the years,whether that be from liberal use of oil and solvents or the rainstorm we get caught in while out on the country ....if we hunted in a concert hall I imagine the procedures could overlap ,whether that be the initial finishing and restoration that may follow .

approaching the restoration of a thin and hollow antique musical instrument ,assembled with hide glue I would never consider a harsh chemical ....its day and night really

A gunsmith I trust who's been in business for 40 years working on fine doubles claims the acetone only takes out the first 1/4" or so of oil. He heats the stock with some type [ won't say what type ]of acid laying in the bottom of the closet. The heat and vapors draw out all the oil. He claimed years ago he used acetone but when the job came back after a year and he's redoing it for nothing he found a different method - his current one.

Newf

Oil soaked wood is oil soaked wood. What we try to do is remove the oil in the least destructive manner so not to damage the wood structure, not warp the wood and prevent over drying it. How the wood is to be used has little bearing on the process of removing the oil.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=341427&Searchpage=6&Main=29920&Words=wonko%27s+brew&Search=true#Post341427

have another day
Dr.WtS

I'm betting he knows this as Newf is a professional stock man. He has done several jobs for me (a couple were major jobs) and does excellent work.

I cleaned up an old muzzle loader a few months ago with an acetone bath.


Soaking in acetone. I use a sheet of tinfoil over the top to seal the bath container. In this case the container is a plastic window box for flowers. For shorter box lock stocks I use an disposable aluminum turkey baking pan.


The stock drying out, sorry I don’t have a better photo.


The gun put back together and awaiting some new percussion nipples.

I’ve done a bunch of guns this way and I’m always happy with the results. However, I am not a perfectionist. Especially when I know that come rain, sleet or snow I’ll be taking the gun into the field.

Steve

Looks great Steve. What else did you do to it? Stain? Linseed oil? True oil?

After I stripped the old finish I gave it a coat of alkanet root stain I made from ground AR and alcohol. Then I refinished it with many coats of Track of the Wolf's Original Oil Finish which I darkened by mixing ground AR in it too. I like alkanet root because it tends to bring out figure hidden in the wood. However, with this old JABC muzzle loader there just wasn't much figure there.

Steve

FWIW calling this gun a JABC is probably a little harsh. It's not poorly made and must've been treasured farm implement in its day. The best part is, at 8lbs, mostly in the barrels, I'm not worried about it blowing up!

Steve, it looks very good and I also wouldn't really call it a JABC.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what does jabc stand for please ?

JABC = "Just Another Belgian Clunker" a name which has been given to the cheap Belgian import hardware store guns that flooded the market back around 1900 ± a decade or so either way.

Thanks 2-piper.