True Oil not drying well

[M. De Land]

Besides, all the percent means is percent by volume of whats in the container to begin with.
What matters is whats cured on your stock finish not how thinned it was before getting their.
The newer thinned linseed will be just as high of a percentage of cured linseed on the final stock finish as will be the traditional boiled linseed. Both have to be hand rubbed out and built up.
The newer brands just dry much faster.
A better comparison would be Linspeed as it is all linseed oil with no other natural oils added other than the petroleum distillats to make it dry fast as is in Tru-oil.

 

[Micah Clark]

I appreciate everyone's help. I am stuck with True Oil sprayed on my stock. We have some sun right now here where i am in Indiana and I've set it outside.

This is my first maple stock . . . most moderns I've worked with, I have used Spar Urethane in a spray can which hardens pretty well and quickly for sanding or steel wool, though things must be clean and dust free as any little hair floating by will stick to it.

I didn't get anything foreign in the True Oil which was a plus for it.

Next time I'll research other options. . . this thread has helped in that regard quite a bit.

I don't intend to duck hunt with this rifle, so I hope it is never rained on or gets wet, but I'll keep the concerns about waterproof in mind for other rifles.

 

[Artificer]

I have never used aerosol Tru-oil and can imagine it would have to be formulated differently than the bottle variety.
I do know that when the bottle drys up their is far more hardened oil in the bottle than 4 or 10 percent.

The 18th century Linseed Oil was VERY different than what is commonly found in hardware stores today. Most linseed oil today has rather large amounts of petroleum distillates in it, that of course the original Linseed Oil did not. Food grade Linseed Oil is the modern counterpart to 18th century Linseed Oil. THEN they added White Lead or other chemical dryers and cooked the oil and dryers before putting the "conglomerate" Linseed Oil on gun stocks. This also was the ORIGINAL "Boiled" Linseed Oil (BLO) and not the, well...., "stuff" that is sold in most hardware stores today. "Boiling" was always a misnomer as the oil was heated/cooked, but not really boiled.

The closest thing sold in Hardware stores to the original BLO was offered by True Value Hardware Stores for many years. However, it was/is "Stand Oil" that is heated with little or no oxygen available to it. Thus it polymerized the oil and makes it dry faster. However, "Stand Oil" did not come out until the early to mid 19th century.

They also made Oil/Varnish finishes from the 17th century onward. For those interested, here is a great article on 18th century gun stock finishes. http://www.muzzleblasts.com/archives/vol5no2/articles/mbo52-1.shtml

I think folks don't understand what the "Proprietary Modified Oil" in Tru Oil is. It is Linseed Oil mixed with resin to forum a varnish. So there is a lot more linseed oil in Tru Oil than the separate listing for linseed oil alone, but it is combined with other things. Thus Tru Oil is pretty similar to a 17th century Oil/Varnish finish, but you don't have to use the White Lead and prepare it yourself.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

I have used and seen Tru Oil used on not only a hundred stocks, but many hundreds, if not thousands of stocks. It was THE primary stock finish we used on wood NM Garand and M14 stocks in the Marine Corps. Contrary to what I have read in a lot of posts here, it is a very good stock finish WHEN it is applied properly. Had there been a better Oil Finish available, we would have used it until we pretty much stopped using wood stocks by the late 80's or 90's.

I hope no one thinks I am taking the OP to task, but if one does not follow the instructions and better still have some mentoring or experience with wood finishes, it sometimes is not difficult to screw them up. Putting way to much oil on at time is a pretty common mistake for those not used to using Tru Oil or other Oil Finishes.

Tru Oil is not just a linseed oil finish, but rather an Oil/Varnish finish. So it has some of the best properties of both. While it does dry fairly fast and a LOT faster than plainer linseed oil finishes, it does not completely harden. The idea is that it stretches and contracts as SOME moisture goes in and out of the stock through the finish. Yet, the varnish in it makes it very water resistant, though not waterproof. I have seen times where the sky opened up and down poured on rifle stocks till the water poured off the stocks. Those stocks finished with Tru Oil only needed a quick wipe down with dry rags or paper towels, set aside in a dry place and the rifles went right back to NM Zero and accuracy the next day.

Tung Oil is a better "basic oil" for gun stocks than linseed oil and better still when it is polymerized as Dave Person mentioned. However, "China Oil" or "China Wood Oil" as it was better known did not really become available in notable quantities until the 20th century. No one can ever say that Tung Oil was never used in the 18th and 19th century for gun stocks, but it would have been so rare as to be almost non existent. Linseed Oil was the "basic oil" used in the 18th/early 19th centuries and then dryers or resins/varnish added to it.

Probably THE most waterproof finish for gun stocks was done with epoxy and under vacuum pressure. The epoxy actually permeated completely throughout the stock and becomes part of it. If you saw through even a very thick portion of a stock treated in that manner, you will see the epoxy permeated right to and completely in the center of even the thickest parts of the gun stock. But this and Fullerplast and other epoxy finishes were never used in our time period.

I am not so sure having a completely waterproof stock finish is a good thing. Wood has to retain some moisture or it will get very brittle and or dry rot. This was the real reason it used to be done so commonly on military stocks and why all of us old enough to remember rubbing Linseed Oil or Boiled Linseed Oil into Military Gun Stocks. The idea was the stocks would not dry rot, though they rarely mentioned it.

Gus

 

[M. De Land]

Good stuff Gus, I learned a lot of oil finish history from your posts.
I have one laminated stock on a 22-250 varmint rifle I put together for myself and it is indeed stable.
It also has a Tru-oil finish.

 

[M. De Land]

Gus, I did notice one of my hunting rifle stocks, a .338 Mag Ruger to be specific, swelled up like a hammered thumb after a wet moose hunt.
What ever the finish, looks like some kind of lacquer, did not keep out much moisture for sure.
The stock warped, when dried out even with a bunch of glass bedding up front in the barrel channel.
I finally replaced it with a synthetic and the trouble was over.
I feel part of the trouble with that stock was that is was plank sawed rather than quarter sawed from the look of the grain run.
I wonder if our fore fathers had ever made any laminated stocks for their flinter's.
Surely it must have crossed their minds especially since almost all were full stock guns and lamination stocks would have been very practical from a stability stand point.

 

[Artificer]

M.D.

I've seen lacquer, shellac and a whole bunch of wood finishes commonly found in hardware stores fail in a number of ways. I've actually seen some of the spray on polymer finishes actually peel off stocks. Of course some folks don't read that certain finishes are for inside use only and they don't follow directions for some outside finishes.

To my knowledge, they did not deliberately make a laminated stock in the period, though some repaired stocks look like it. Two reasons I know of for that.

First, since good wood blanks were so readily available compared to the demand, they might have thought someone would be crazy to try a glued up stock.

Second reason was the available glues in the period. Hide glue was the most common and there was no way it would hold together in rain, sleet or snow. There WAS at least one or two glues in the period that would have worked and one was fish gut glue. However, this was a very uncommon glue in the Colonies. It did show up around the Mediterranean and some Balkan countries as well as the Huns used it to make their composite bows. I think the Egyptians used it on their bows as well. From what I gather about it, it took months to cure, so it would not have been popular here for that reason alone.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

"I feel part of the trouble with that stock was that is was plank sawed rather than quarter sawed from the look of the grain run."

I am unsure how much plank sawing vs quarter sawing has to do with water absorption and retention. Quarter sawn wood is stronger than plank sawn, but that is because of the way the grain runs in the wood after you make it into a stock. I think a good finish over either type of sawn stocks will be more important than how it was sawn, but I am not absolutely positive about that.

Gus

 

[Pete G]

The 18th century Linseed Oil was VERY different than what is commonly found in hardware stores today.

Gus

What about the linseed oil sold as art supplies? It seems to be quite a bit thinner that the paint store stuff.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Pete,
That is what I use if I include linseed oil in any mix for finishes. The artist grade raw oil is quite good. Ironically, I use it to slow down drying. On hot dry days, my polymerized tung oil dries so fast that I cannot hand rub it in before it gets too sticky. I add a few small squirts of raw linseed oil to it and that slows it down just right for hand rubbing. It also produces a softer looking sheen, which I may prefer depending on my objectives.

dave

 

[54ball]

I guess you're not convinced on the misting of Minwax spray poly over Tru-oil to get that satin finish.

I'm trying to help you out of a jam, not play Monday morning quarterback.

I am not a fan of Tru-oil and I don't like the spay Tru-oil at all. But...I have used the wipe on Tru-oil on TC's, Winchesters, Remingtons, and I always use the Minwax poly trick, to get it back to a satin finish. Try it on scrap wood and you will see.


Coulda, Woulda, Shouda, ain't worth a hoot when you already got it on the stock.

I'm sure that works for you.

But......

By last report his stock was not even dry yet so adding a top finish coat of yet another substance is the last thing he needs to do now.

 

[Artificer]

The 18th century Linseed Oil was VERY different than what is commonly found in hardware stores today.

Gus

What about the linseed oil sold as art supplies? It seems to be quite a bit thinner that the paint store stuff.

Like Dave Person mentioned, that is also pretty much the same thing as the original oil and what is called food grade linseed oil. I believe I have read that Artist's Linseed Oil is strained quite a few times for it to come out that clear.

Gus

 

[M. De Land]

Yeah, the way they are sawed has nothing to do with moisture absorption but what it does is tend to wharp in the vertical plane if quarter sawed, , which is easily compensated for with sight elevation.
With windage we want our calm air zero sight position to be as near mid barrel on both ends as we can get.
The Ruger stock mentioned warped sideways so bad I couldn't hit a Lyman target at a hundred yards from a bench rest with a rifle that before would often shoot a minute at the same range.
The tip off was when I got home and pulled the stock all my RIG grease undercoat was stuck on the right side of the glass bedded barrel channel.