Thursday, June 04, 2009

Ah, one of the joys of old surplus rifles

is getting the oil and grease out of the stock. The P14 I picked up at Tulsa last fall, to be specific. It wasn't too bad(I've cleaned much worse), mainly the wrist at the back of the receiver, and along the sides of the receiver area.

I finally got pretty much all of it out, and rubbed on linseed thinned with mineral spirits; the spirits thins it enough to let it really penetrate into the wood, let it sit a while then wipe off any excess. It's been drying the last couple of days, so tomorrow I should be able to do a bit of smoothing- making sure not to damage the cartouches- and put on the first coat of Minwax Antique Oil Finish. I'm not going to try to take this all the way to a gloss finish, just three or four times to seal the wood and protect it.

Have I ever mentioned how nice nitrile gloves can be?

Oh, earlier at the redhead's place, I read her recipe for soda bread, and decided to try it. The only cast iron I have that's about 10" diameter is the dutch oven I picked up a while back and hadn't used yet, so it was christened with this; and considering how much rising the stuff did while baking, I'm glad I used it. The bread's good(very), and that and some cheese was dinner.

No comments: