A little furniture restoration - cosmoline removal from wood tips?

Last night I bushed off the whiting and applied another (more even) coat and let it cook in the hot shop all day today.


Here you can see where the saturated areas are. The areas that were white have most of the oil pulled out.


I removed that coat and the areas showing brown above are still considerably darker yet (sorry no pics, got in a hurry putting the next coat on).

Nice amount of work! Will look good I bet once you pull all the oil out of it!

What a great place this forum. I learn so many different things here, a lot of them things I never even heard of before. This is a great thread. Thanks for doing it.

Paul Douglass said:

What a great place this forum. I learn so many different things here, a lot of them things I never even heard of before. This is a great thread. Thanks for doing it.

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Paul I echo everyone of your words. Well said.

I find the restoration aspect of anything incredibly fascinating. Seems as long as one has patience there is no end to what can be done. Watched the videos you linked to Darren and never thought that DNA would "wash" the pollutants out of wood. However if one stops and actually things about it, then it makes sense. I always wonder when it comes to this type of thing if what I am about to do is going do more harm so it puts one off experimenting. But i come to realize having a good sense of when to stop whatever is more of the key. I tend to try get back to original but have come to accept I am not going to get back there especially if i have sanded the whole thing to nothing. Doing that with auto parts right now and rust removal.

Rob Keeble said:

Paul I echo everyone of your words. Well said.

I find the restoration aspect of anything incredibly fascinating. Seems as long as one has patience there is no end to what can be done. Watched the videos you linked to Darren and never thought that DNA would "wash" the pollutants out of wood. However if one stops and actually things about it, then it makes sense. I always wonder when it comes to this type of thing if what I am about to do is going do more harm so it puts one off experimenting. But i come to realize having a good sense of when to stop whatever is more of the key. I tend to try get back to original but have come to accept I am not going to get back there especially if i have sanded the whole thing to nothing. Doing that with auto parts right now and rust removal.

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I will plus 1 there - this one is TOTALLY new to me - I find it quite interesting

Well I'm glad you all are getting something from my experimentation. I could have ordered one in much better shape for not much more money, but I was wanting a project, guess I got one.

Today I found much less areas that were browning the whiting. Mostly around the hand guard and a few areas around the receiver.


I cleaned it up for a better inspection and could still visibly see where there was oil in the wood, still gave everything a good coat of whiting, but was extra diligent on the areas with the staining.


After this coat I put it in a black plastic bag and sat it out in the direct sunlight.

After a couple of hours I pulled the stock and hand guard from the black plastic bag and found a significant amount of discoloration of the whiting, so heat is a good thing it appears.

I did a good cleaning and felt I got most of the oil staining from the stock and hand guard, so I started sanding the stock a little to see if all my work had done much good. The sandpaper on the right was what I used prior to starting the whiting process, as you can see, there is a big difference in the build up.


Next up I got some water, paper towels, and the iron and attempted to steam out some of the smaller dings.


This worked well, but as you can see I was still left with a lot of stains.


I started to sand, but realized quickly it was going to take a lot of it. I looked around for my scraper, but didn't find it. I realized I had a whole bunch of mini scrapers in the knife drawer.


Compare these with the shots above and you can get an idea of how well they are working.

Reading this made me remember I have an old Springfield WWI in my safe. I bought it through the NRA surplus program back in the early 70's (around $25) that I was going to sport-er-ize for a hunting rifle. I never got around to it and it is still in the original condition. Maybe I should refinish the stock on it. At the time I also got a M1 Carbine through the same program for $20. Still sitting in my safe. The little M1 was great fun to hunt Jack rabbits with.

Paul Douglass said:

Reading this made me remember I have an old Springfield WWI in my safe. I bought it through the NRA surplus program back in the early 70's (around $25) that I was going to sport-er-ize for a hunting rifle. I never got around to it and it is still in the original condition. Maybe I should refinish the stock on it. At the time I also got a M1 Carbine through the same program for $20. Still sitting in my safe. The little M1 was great fun to hunt Jack rabbits with.

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Well, might check the current value on those before doing any restoration/modifications, the M1 sells for about $1250 now, the Springfield is probably $900 - $1200 depending on the condition. However, they are yours and yours to do as you wish with.

Latest pictures post scraping are looking very good considering what you started with. At the end of the day once finished again it will be great. Has to show some wear after all its used.
Darren whats the barrel and chamber like given what we see the stock was exposed to.

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I'll be stopping at the grocery store tonight for a can of Bar Keepers Friend (oxalic acid), which should lighten the dark stains that are left.

Rob Keeble said:

Latest pictures post scraping are looking very good considering what you started with. At the end of the day once finished again it will be great. Has to show some wear after all its used.
Darren whats the barrel and chamber like given what we see the stock was exposed to.

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They are in great shape actually, hardly any scratches, trigger is very tight, bolt slides well (though numbers didn't match, but was common), and head spacing was good. The barrel is chrome lined, and appears to be in good shape.

I'm looking for some Catalpa lumber scraps (Chu Wood) to repair some of the chipped out areas of the stock and the area that is bad around then recoil lug bolt.

Got to wondering how WE were doing with this rifle restoration. Any updates?

Sorry Paul, been busy with the grandson and a bunch of other stuff. I did get an hour or so in on it this weekend.

Thanks to some advice from the surplus rifle forum I decided to to give some Tilex (green bottle) a try on removing the remaining black spots. Not only did it remove them, it removed all of the staining around the butt plate, which I was thinking would never come out. From the pics you can see that some of the original finish still remains around the fore stock and grips. It seems to have removed some of the remaining oil that wasn't quite coming out.



For the process I simply sprayed down the stock and placed it in a black garbage bag and sat it in the sun for about a half hour, wiped it down, then repeated one more time.

Next up is some patch work to fix the gouges in the side and missing chunks at the back of the receiver (Big THANKS to Terry Quiram for the catalpa wood! ), then some light sanding. I may strip the remaining finish to make sure the whole thing finishes consistently. The guys on the surplus rifle forum recommended "boning" the stock, which involves rubbing the stock down with a bone to lay down and compress the fibers. Anyone done this before?

Thanks for the update.

Never heard boning. But then, I never heard of any of this stuff you are doing so far! The only stock refinishing I ever did was to take the old finish off by scraping it off with a piece of glass from a broken bottle, sand and put on a new finish. That was when I was a kid.

Okay, lying in bed the other night I got to thinking about this rifle refinish. Must have just looked at an issue of American Rifleman. Been a NRA Life member a long, long time. When I subscribed it cost $150 for life membership. I paid it off at $10 a month even though it meant some months the kids did not get fed!!

Anyway, Darren, did you ever complete the rifle and if so got some pictures??

My ears must have been burning. I was actually just getting ready to start on it again. Things got busy with the grandson last year and just didn't have time to move forward on it. It's been staring at me from the corner of my office all day today, I need to cut a patch for the side and get it fit. I was thinking of cutting recess for the patch on my cnc and also cut a matching patch piece to fit the recess. I promise I'll have some updates soon, have a little more time on my hands now.

Although I've neve restored a rifle I would have removed all metal parts from the stock, that would allow me to work on the stock more comfortably and at the same time check, clean and oil all the metal ones.

If you've done so and put everything back for the pics then please disregard.

Toni Ciuraneta said:

Although I've neve restored a rifle I would have removed all metal parts from the stock, that would allow me to work on the stock more comfortably and at the same time check, clean and oil all the metal ones.

If you've done so and put everything back for the pics then please disregard.

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No, tried to remove the ones left on there, just didn't know how to quite get them out without ruining them. Just plan to clean them up afterwards and re-blue them.

Well, it's only been a year since I said I was getting back to this project. I spent a little time on the stock the other day and seems even after all the oven cleaner and whiting treatments, it still had a ton of oil in the stock. I just about ordered another stock, but then thought I'd try taking a little more wood off. After a couple of hours with the new scrapers, I was seeing many of the imperfections disappear and getting into some less punky feeling wood.

I found I had to reshape a few areas to get past some of the dings, which I figured I have nothing to lose, so started shaping things to fit my hands and my eye.


I originally was going to just cut a dutchman to fit in the rotted area where the recoil bolt goes through the stock, but realized the 3 indentations were pretty shallow, so ended up cutting some plugs from the catalpa wood Terry sent me and orienting the grain. I also had to straighten up a couple of areas missing wood and cut a couple of fillers on the back of the receiver and at the end of the barrel that I'll shape once the glue is dried overnight.


There's still a lot of dark stains, so I'll probably just go with a dark stain and BLO for a finish once I get things shaped up. Now that I have the blasting cabinet I'll mask and clean up the pieces of metal I couldn't remove and cold blue them.

Edit: Honestly, just went back through the earlier pics and I forget how far this stock has come, it's looking pretty good in comparison...lol