I originally put this together about a year ago. I've picked up some more information in the time since, so I've updated it and instead of just editing the original I'm posting the new version.
Old military guns in particular. If you've ever bought an old surplus rifle you'll know what I mean. Some aren't too bad, others are awful. Especially British and some U.S. rifles. Many stocks were oiled to help preserve them, and they soaked up oil from the metal. A lot of them soaked up so much that when the wood gets hot from either the sun or shooting, oil seeps out. And then, of course, there's Cosmoline.
Cosmoline is a grease that was designed for one thing: to protect metal from corrosion in long-term storage. And it works, very well. The bad thing about it? Getting it off. It is the stickiest stuff you've ever ruined your pants on, and the British in particular used a lot of it; the climate I would assume. When a rifle was sent back for service/storage they would dismantle it; anything needing work was repaired or replaced; then the bore was filled, the action & barrel greased thoroughly and replaced in the stock; and sometimes the wood was given a coat. When it was placed in the rack or crate, it could- did- sit there for years into decades, well protected from rust. Which means when you get it...
Did I mention that if it has sat long enough, the stuff can harden? Petrified Cosmoline is even worse to get out.
The metal's not that bad. Most any cleaning solvent, including hot water & soap(I've know of people taking one to a car wash and using the engine cleaner spray on it) will cut the grease off; my favorite is either low-odor mineral spirits or a can of carburetor cleaner. Either will cut the stuff and leave no residue behind(yes, use rubber gloves and ventilation). For mineral spirits, first get a wallpaper tray(plastic, $2 or $3 bucks) and a stiff paintbrush. Put the barreled action in the tray, pour over some ms, and start brushing it on. You can do this without taking trigger, etc., off, and you can throw the bolt in also; getting it all off makes it easier to dismantle completely and oil later. This stuff cuts old grease and crud very nicely, and when you're done you can set the metal aside and the ms evaporates quickly. Then you can do complete disassembly with a lot less mess.
I mentioned carb cleaner. It or brake cleaner is good for a number of things, as it cuts grease and oil and evaporates leaving no trace of itself. Unless you want to use a case at a time, it's not good for a really greased-up piece. For light degreasing, and hitting the corners you find you missed with the brush, it's great, as the spray helps cut and blow the stuff out. Same as ms or anything else of the type, use gloves and good ventilation.
One thing you can do if you've got a: a really greasy gun and b: want to get it started but you don't have time for the above right now is make a soaker. I took a piece of 4" PVC pipe about four feet long and put a permanent cap on one end. Pour in about a gallon of laquer thinner, mineral spirits, or kerosene. Take the barreled action out of the stock and lower it action first into the pipe. Slosh it up and down a few times, then let it down to the bottom and slip a cap on the open end and prop it up somewhere securely so it won't fall over. You can leave it there up to overnight, and the stuff will cut a lot of the grease off. Note: I do not know how long you can leave one in this without a chance of rust; some of the stuff will attract moisture from the air(which is another reason for capping it). I do know that I've left a piece in overnight with no problems at all; it depends, I would think, on the humidity in your area. Two more points:
Some will fit inside with the bolt in, some you'll have to remove the bolt and(maybe) the trigger for it to fit inside the pipe.
Second: if you're going to do a number of these things over time, you might consider either building a rack to hold the pipe or finding a place you can bungee-cord it solidly. You might also consider getting piece of steel or iron pipe and having a plug welded on one end; some solvents might attack PVC.
Now you come to the wood. There are all kinds of methods that work, including spray oven cleaner, degreasers and lots of rinsing, etc. However, some of this stuff can harm the wood. And, they only clean the surface, leaving a lot of stuff soaked in; and it WILL bleed out over time, especially when the wood gets hot. The only thing I've found that really 'deep-cleans' the wood is heat and time. My favorite method, is the kitty-litter method; details later.
Let me throw in here, some of this depends on your long-term intent. If you have a really beat-up stock that you plan on refinishing(as in sanding down to remove all or most of the dings), you have more methods open. If you plan in keeping it in as original a state as possible, you're more limited. In either case, you might want to clean the surface to see what's there first. Sometimes there are armory markings and cartouches, individual touches, etc., hiding under all that crud on the surface. For instance, the first mil-surp firearm I ever owned was a #4 Mk1 Enfield; cleaning brought out a row of small 'x' marks on the bottom edge of the stock; apparently someone was keeping count. If I'd started sanding before looking it over, I never would have seen them. You can use a degreaser and water to clean the surface, but that can harm/hide small markings. What seems to work very well at surface cleaning with less chance of damaging the wood is odorless mineral spirits. Use that wallpaper tray I mentioned before. Take all the metal you can off, although you can leave everything except the action, barrel & trigger assembly in at this stage with no problem. Pour some ms in and use a brush to work it all over the surface. Let it sit a few minutes, then use the brush to work it around again. Just keep doing this for a while, and you'll notice the wood looking better and a lot of stuff collecting in the bottom of the tray. When it's clean enough to see all the details, take it out and set it aside to dry, and pour the ms back in the can. By the way, do have a good-sized funnel for this as you can reuse the ms a number of times.
When it's dry, you can look it over and see what's on the surface. You might be surprised both by the markings and by the look of the wood; a lot of these firearms turn out to have some very pretty wood in the stock. On the other hand, it may have no markings at all left; many U.S. firearm stocks were refinished more than once, and all the markings disappeared into sanding dust. If this is the case, sanding it down will harm nothing. Personally, if I do find armory or personal markings, I'd try to preserve them, but that's a decision you'll have to make. If you decide to keep them but still want to sand it a bit to clean up the dings, splinters, etc., you can put your thumb over the marks and sand around them; just keep the sanding light, maybe using #000 or 0000 steel wool only if all you need is a touch of smoothing.
If you've got dents you want to get rid of, steam is your friend. Use a soldering iron or clothes iron and a cloth. Get the cloth wet, put a fold of it over the dent, and apply the iron; the iron boils the water to steam and the only place for some of it to go is into the wood. You may have to do it several times, but you might be surprised how much it'll raise the surface of the dent. When done, let it dry & sand lightly to remove the whiskers.
Ok, you've looked the stock over and decided how you want to refinish it. Even if you plan to sand it down completely, I'd still recommend doing a deep-clean degreasing, otherwise that old crud will seep out and ruin the finish you put on. I mentioned the kitty-litter method, and here it is: Strip the stock to wood only and wipe off any grease that was hiding under barrel band springs, buttplate, etc. Get some heavy plastic and make a bag wide enough to put the stock in and about a foot longer, make sure you seal it well enough to hold some weight. Put the stock in, and then fill the bag with either cheap unscented kitty litter or oil absorbent. Close the bag and lay it out in the sun all day. Next day, put it back out on the other side. Depending on temperature and how much oil/grease the thing had soaked up, a week to ten days should do it. The heat will cause the oil/grease to bleed to the surface and the litter will soak it up. When done take it out and go over it with a brush to make sure you get all the dust out of the holes and inletting. You may want to use the mineral spirits and brush right now; it'll cut the last of the stuff on the surface and get rid of it(you can also use a degreaser and water to clean the surface now, though if you're trying to preserve cartouches and such I'd advise against it). I've seen an old stock come out of this treatment looking almost like new wood. Don't throw the absorbent away, save it for when you spill oil on the driveway and such. Or the next rifle. You can also, in cooler weather, put it in the truck or backseat of your car when it's parked in the sun; just make sure the bag is sealed.
The other way to do this is much faster, but only works if the stock is short enough to fit in the oven. Prepare the wood as before. Take a roll of cheap paper towels and stuff the receiver area, barrel channel, etc. with them, if it's got a butt trap stuff that, then wrap the entire stock with at least two layers. Wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil, stick it in the oven and turn it to 'low'. Please make sure the stock is not touching the coil or right on the bottom above the burner, whichever. Leave it there for at least an hour, pull it out/yes, it will be rather warm/ and unwrap. Throw away the paper, which will be soaked, repack & wrap the stock and put it back in. It does the same thing as the litter treatment, it just does it faster. For smaller pieces you could probably either use a metal pan full of litter, or a length of metal tubing; put the wood in, cover with litter, seal the end of the tube and bake.
Another thing that works well on smaller pieces is to make a mix of one part ammonia to three parts water, get a soft brush and start brushing that over the piece. My understanding is the ammonia converts the oil/grease to a form of soap which the water can wash away. This works well on pistol handgrips, handguards & such. You may not want to use this on pieces that are very thin, as it can cause warping. The piece will then need to dry thoroughly before you can refinish it. I can attest that this will get crud out of a piece of wood that looks clean, used on an oily pistol grip or handguard it can be amazing how much stuff winds up in the bucket.
Theres a forum here that specializes in this subject(their home site has lots of interesting forums), there's a lot there on both cleaning and refinishing. Some of their methods I've never tried, some I wouldn't. I keep using the kitty litter method because:
A. I'm lazy
B. Once it's set up and heating, I can do something else
C. Again, If there are, or you suspect there may be, markings of interest on the wood, this method will not damage the surface as some others might. I have to stress might; people on the Milsurp forums swear by some of the other methods. You makes your choice and takes your chances.
Whether you're just touching up an old stock or completely refinishing, you'll find that, even after a good degreasing, the sandpaper will clog up fast. For just touching up, no big deal, you're not doing that much. For complete refinishing, it is a big deal, you'll go through a lot of it. So if you're taking all the old finish and surface off, I will suggest using a scraper.
A scraper will cut fast and clean, and won't clog; at most you'll just have to wipe off the edge every so often. You can buy commercially-made scrapers at woodworking shops and suppliers, or you can make your own. Two ways to make them.
DISCLAIMER: the first method yields a good scraper that will, if you're not careful, slice you worse than what you're working on. Use gloves and be damn careful, and if you start hemmoraging don't blame me.
The simplest, cheapest way is to use glass. Get something like a mayonnaise jar, wrap it in something and break it, or break a piece of almost any piece of glass. The edges will be VERY sharp, and if you're not careful will slice you as you work, so use gloves and BE CAREFUL.
The other way is to make it of metal. What was recommended to me some years ago was an old hand-saw blade. Use a Dremel and cutoff wheel, or a grinder with said wheel, or just use the corner of a grinding wheel to cut a groove along which you can break a piece off. Then grind the edges you cut square, and as smooth as possible. Here a sanding drum or belt sander works very well. You also want to touch up wth sides, to the edge is square a smooth. Now comes the tricky part. For a very fine cut you can use it as is, but to take off material fairly quickly you need to forma 'hook' along the edge. The way I was shown was to clamp the piece in a vise, take a screwdriver with a round shank- the smooth part of a round file, basically anything rounded, smooth and hard enough will work- and push and pull it along the edge, tilted toward the edge you're forming the hook on. It forces the corner to curl over a bit, giving you a very aggressive cutting edge. You can do all sides if you wish, I'd suggest only hooking the edge or edges you plan on using, so you don't have to worry about cutting yourself on a fresh edge.
Generally, with glass or steel, you want a piece with a curve to the edge, which will let you work around the curves in the stock better. Hold the scraper(Carefully, I said!) with the working edge trailing your hand; you're not pushing it into the wood, you're dragging it across the surface. A little trial and error will show you the best angle, that varies according to the wood and the tool. Drag it a ways, see how deep and wide it cut, make the next pass and observe; you'll find the best angle to work the piece at. You'll also produce lots of fine shavings, and in the case of an old gunstock you'll be removing the crud at the surface along with the wood. You can work the entire piece, or just in an area that needs serious cutdown.
When you're done, you'll have a stock with a much cleaner, smoother surface, ready for sanding. And you'll have much less trouble with the sandpaper clogging.
Finishing up depends on whether you're trying to keep the finish historically accurate or just get a good-looking finish that will protect the wood. You can use boiled linseed oil, you can use shellac, you can use Birchwood Casey's gunstock finish, there are lots of possibilities. Do some research and give something a try. Personally I don't use linseed anymore for two reasons: first, on old wood it can actually soften it, and second, it darkens the wood; a LOT. If you want it real dark, that's fine, but it can actually darken enough to hide the pretty grain you found. One thing I'm trying is a method recommended by the Fulton Armory site for M1 rifles; degrease, do any sanding, etc., then give the wood a coat of Minwax Natural Stain(no color, it just seals the surface) followed after appropriate drying time by a coat of Minwax Tung Oil Finish. I've got a stock I'm trying it out on, 'trying' still because NOBODY around here has the Tung Oil Finish. However, using the Natural Stain on an old walnut stock looks wonderful; the wood looks new, and seems pretty well protected from moisture. I'm keeping it clean, and as soon as I find the finish(probably have to order it) I'll apply it and update this with the new info.
Ref the kitty litter method, if you'll be cleaning a number of stocks, you might want to make a sturdier container. I recently bought a 5' section of 5" diameter stovepipe for one. Cut it to 50" long, then mashed it into an oval cross-section, then made two plugs out of 5/8" plywood. One's screwed and caulked into one end, the other uses two screws to hold it in place. I also drilled a hole in the removable plug and set an eyebolt in it to make it easier to pull out. Then I painted the whole thing flat black. To use, pour a couple of inches of litter in, set the stock in, then fill it up, insert the plug and lock in place, then lay it in the sun.
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