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Originally Posted by M ELEY
For dry, damaged hide/leather or wood, like on hilts and scabbards, i find that linseed oil has an amazing way of re-lusturizing (is that even a word-  ) the finish. Also works great on old gun stocks...
Anyone else try this product?? |
Which Linseed do you use? The linseed topic is something I always wanted to bring up here on this forum.
I use "RAW Linseed Oil" on a few of my rifle stocks, and now have started using it on some of my wood handles and scabbards...RLO is NOT the same as "Boiled Linseed Oil". Many frown upon RLO because it takes forever to dry and it darkens wood too much where it effects their color preference, but IMO it looks the best and it is the oil that keeps wood from drying out and cracking. RLO was the original ingredient by most gun manufactures pre-WWII to put on their rifle stocks(priority being to keep them from cracking)...which is also why they have the nicer looking aged stocks that are darker and have greater amount of patina on them compared to post-WWII rifle stocks. BLO on the other hand is popular because it dries fast...but they do contain other chemicals and "dryers", as well as sealers...so BLOs from different manufactures can give different looks and textures. Because of all these chemicals in BLO, some companies that make wood playsets for children went back to natural RLO because some of them felt BLO contained too many chemicals for children to be playing with. Aside from drying faster, the other positive thing about BLO is that it hardens and seals the wood better which holds up better to rain and the elements...which personally I feel can defeat the purpose of getting that aged patina to grow(were not taking these aged artifacts out in the rain or leaving them outside anyways). Sealing wood is something you want to do for outside wood decks that would last about 5-15 maybe 20 years...Im not looking to do this for my wood rifle stocks or scabbards. BLO does better at locking out air and moisture(rain), which also means the wood can still dry out and crack...one big negative for me to not use BLO or any sealer, the wood will take twice as long to develop a patina OR will never develop a patina because oxidation can no longer occur. There is always a great debate around the C&R gun community about what to rub on wood stocks...BLO, RLO, and Tung Oil. Some gun owners have reported to seeing their stocks turn darker and start developing a patina by the 6month of adding RLO to their brand new rifle stocks. None of them stand up well to outdoor environments, but I don't drag my stocks threw storms or assault beaches either...so for me personally, I am aiming for that old aged look, RLO makes the wood look more aged(in my eyes).
Everyone has their own preference to using linseed oil, tung oil, sealers, etc... This is just my own preference/opinion which I know isn't for every body, and Im still learning to take better care of my pieces(thanks to everyone on this forum).
