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A little furniture restoration - cosmoline removal from wood tips?

Darren Wright

Darren Wright

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I picked up this Type 53 this week for less than $80 as the furniture is damaged on it.
2014-06-09%u0025252019.31.30.jpg 2014-06-09%u0025252019.31.42.jpg

The upper hand guard had a crack, which was all intact, just needed re-glued.
2014-06-09%u0025252019.32.54.jpg

The stock looks to have taken a beating over the years as a drill rifle, but the barrel and receiver are actually in great shape.
2014-06-09%u0025252019.32.35.jpg 2014-06-09%u0025252019.32.43.jpg 2014-06-09%u0025252019.33.04.jpg

The area with the gouging in the I was thinking about doing a dutchman/filler if I can get the spanner nut off.

There's a lot of machining marks on the barrel under the hand guard, so not really worth turning into a sporter.
2014-06-09%u0025252019.37.17.jpg

I'm mostly looking to clean up the stock, but leave some of the wear and re-finish it. I need to get the cosmoline soaked out of the stock. I've read that I can use whiting for this, which I have on hand. Just wondering how it will affect any finishing?
 
Is it cosmoline, or is it linseed oil? Back in the day, we rubbed our stocks daily with RAW linseed oil. Being raw, it never polymerized, and stayed wet and sticky.

You might just want to scrub the stock vigorously with mineral spirits (paint thinner), and repeat several times to get most of the residue (either cosmoline or linseed oil) out/off. The whiting will help absorb either one out of the wood's pores, and it won't damage anything. Once it's absorbed the oil, it'll just brush off. After you get it cleaned up, apply numerous coats of Birchwood-Casey Truoil and it ought to look pretty good.

As with any old military rifle, check the headspace before you fire it.
 
Jim DeLaney said:
Is it cosmoline, or is it linseed oil? Back in the day, we rubbed our stocks daily with RAW linseed oil. Being raw, it never polymerized, and stayed wet and sticky.

As with any old military rifle, check the headspace before you fire it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, pretty sure it's cosmoline, was caked pretty badly under the barrel/receiver, and it's surplus. Definitely checking the head space, usually do, but this one doesn't have matching numbers on the bolt. That was common though with these as I think the Russians sent them a bunch of surplus parts to use with the newly built rifles.

Thanks for the info. :wave:
 
Great collector piece for the price.

Interesting article on Wikki about this overall rifle category http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosin–Nagant and its fascinating history.

There is a interesting business snippet in the article about two of the gun makers (Remington Arms and New England Westinghouse) in the US needing to be "bailed out" when the Russians stopped paying for the rifles they had purchased and received. I found it interesting because it pre dates any auto industry bail out like happened to Chrysler when Iacocca managed to get a bail out in 79. Dont know US bus history anywhere near sufficient to know if this was potentially a first, probably not.

Good point Jim makes about linseed oil. Growing up in a cricket playing country we were told to put linseed oil on a new bat. It always confused me and put me of the concept of linseed oil as a finish, i always wondered how someone would want a sticky non drying finish. Then i got to learn about boiled linseed oil.

So was the whole idea of putting linseed oil onto wood like a rifle stock or bat valid or should it have been the boiled linseed. Both soak in so i cannot gather what the motivation is for the non polymerizing version.

Darren what is the chemical you are referring to as whiting? Bleach?
 
Thanks Jim do you have knowledge of the motivations behind using linseed oil on wood as opposed to blo. I am presuming that blo is not a relatively new idea so again presuming both were around at the same time. :dunno:
 
When I was in "The Corps" we use to work on our rifle stocks by the hour, hand rubbing linseed oil into the stock. (We carried M-14's) I don't remember them being sticky if we rubbed long enough and had enough. If I remember correctly, the theory was it would help keep the outer surface of the stock soft so if you banged the stock it would dent as opposed to crack or break. We were technically not allowed to use anything but linseed oil, but some used linspeed oil (I think that was the name) which would dry and live a shinny finish after hand rubbing it in. Looked nice, but woo unto a Marine that got caught using it.
 
Jim DeLaney said:
... Back in the day, we rubbed our stocks daily with RAW linseed oil. Being raw, it never polymerized, and stayed wet and sticky...
Click to expand...

It's my understanding that raw linseed oil is a hardening oil, and thus will still polymerize, but much more slowly than "boiled" linseed oil. (I used "boiled" because these days the pre-polymerization is typically done with additives and by heating it in ways other than boiling it.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linseed_oil

I suspect your gun stocks stayed wet and sticky because the daily applications of raw linseed oil were never given the time needed to polymerize.
 
Hand Rubbed oil finishes is something I am familiar with . As far as rubbing BLO or straight Linseed oil it only requires a drop on the palm of your hand to do a side of the stock. The heat from the friction dries the oil. I prefer 100% Tung myself but BLO works. I've used it on the old 1718 French Fowler I restored a few years back.
 
Well, oil sucking is underway.

I'm using the same whiting that I use for stained glass, Wel-cote brand, can get it at the paint store usually for $3 a tub this size. It can be used for adding to paint for chalk board surfaces
2014-06-11 21.28.31.jpg

I mixed it with some acetone and brushed it on, though it was getting a bit dry by the time I got the hand guard done. I'll let it sit in the shop (gets warm in there) for a few days then brush it all off and repeat at least one more time. Some of the areas are so saturated that the wood feels punky, so hoping this will firm it up some.
2014-06-11 21.28.01.jpg 2014-06-11 21.28.09.jpg
 
Scott R Smith said:
Watch, in 100 years, these will be old antiques, and people will pay a huge premium for ones with cosmoline on them--lol
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Ha! True, good thing you can buy these by the case still, maybe by that time the 30 some million in circulation will have dwindled to make them actually worth something.


Well, didn't get real hot in the shop today, but the whiting did soak up some oil. On the hand guard there is only a few spots of white left, most has turned brown, compare it with the pic above.
2014-06-12 21.32.10.jpg

Quite a few brown areas on the stock as well. Will clean this all off and put another coat on tomorrow, then let it sit until Sunday.
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Incredible, never knew of doing something like this. So the whitening is drawing all the contamination from the wood.? Have you done this before on wood?
Can this mix do anthing on material say like a shirt that has an oil stain? Is the whitening corrosive?
Given that the rifle is not exactly a rare collectors piece have you had any thoughts on using your cnc to "carve" your own new stock?
So for the rest of the rifle did you find any rust like the lathe?

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 
Darren Wright said:
Well, oil sucking is underway.

I'm using the same whiting that I use for stained glass, Wel-cote brand, can get it at the paint store usually for $3 a tub this size. It can be used for adding to paint for chalk board surfaces
View attachment 83297

I mixed it with some acetone and brushed it on, though it was getting a bit dry by the time I got the hand guard done. I'll let it sit in the shop (gets warm in there) for a few days then brush it all off and repeat at least one more time. Some of the areas are so saturated that the wood feels punky, so hoping this will firm it up some.
View attachment 83295 View attachment 83296
Click to expand...

Darren that's cool. I will be putting this to use. Thanks Your doing an awesome job on this.
 
Rob Keeble said:
Incredible, never knew of doing something like this. So the whitening is drawing all the contamination from the wood.? Have you done this before on wood?
Can this mix do anthing on material say like a shirt that has an oil stain? Is the whitening corrosive?
Given that the rifle is not exactly a rare collectors piece have you had any thoughts on using your cnc to "carve" your own new stock?
So for the rest of the rifle did you find any rust like the lathe?
Click to expand...

This is the first time I've tried it, jury is still out if it's going to work. I don't know if the whiting is corrosive, but may leave a stain. Typically water scaling is Calcium Carbonate, which helps inhibit corrosion in pipes. Except for the butt plate, it's a pretty rust free gun, it does have a little surface rust/staining on the spring. I'll see how the original stock turns out, but I could see making one. For the price I may pickup a couple more of them. I got my C&R license a while back, so I don't have to pay transfer fees to get them.

Dave Hawksford said:
Darren that's cool. I will be putting this to use. Thanks Your doing an awesome job on this.
Click to expand...

This is also something that one can do using acetone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb7WQTbXUlU

But will see how the whiting technique works first. May have to try a combination of each.
 
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