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2/22/2020 5:20:05 PM
 
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Section 16: Gun Work Subject: 22 Stock Msg# 1076604
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Hi Mark,
Waterlox is a polyurethane and finishes very well. I started with Pilkington's Poly finish in Alaska but it didn't give me the water resistance/proofing I needed in Alaska. I talked to Pilkington and he said that Waterlox would work with his poly. So I started using Waterlox for the first two or three applications and then used Pilkington's Poly to finish the filling of the pores. Sometimes I used just Waterlox to fill the pores. I always used Pilkington's Finishing Oil to finish the finish, no matter what the base was. Phil Pilkington was a chemist for many years before becoming a gun builder full time. He developed the formula for his finish so that it wouldn't dry too fast. That is what is needed to wet sand a stock and not get a mess. The original Waterlox also wet sands well. Some people use pure Tung Oil to finish a stock. I never tried it myself. Pilkington's Poly finish and Waterlox both have some Tung Oil as an ingredient. Boiled Linseed oil is a bear to work with and Tung Oil has better water resistance. Frank |
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For reference, the above message is a reply to a message where: As primarily a guy who works on military rifles, boiled linseed oil has been my go-to finish for decades, but you know how much work it is, and if you actually use a rifle much, you have to periodically renew a linseed oil finish, so I've long been looking for alternatives. I watched a documentary on M1 rifles where a builder said he used Danish oil, but I've never found a true Danish oil that wasn't just another name for polyurethane  of one sort or another. Um, no thanks!  I'm sure there are other natural oil wood finishes, but I haven't found any.
I've picked up a couple rifles where someone had lightly sanded the stocks--not good but not a travesty, and finished the stocks, I believe with Tru-oil, which is polyurethane based. As you know you can leave that high gloss or buff it down to nearly a matte, or soft finish. Not like Pilkington's I'm sure. But these both have a nearly matte finish--someone obviously wanted them to look as military as possible and did a credible job. A casual shooter/collector might find them acceptable, but I don't. When the weather is better I intend to strip the stocks and refinish them. I have another rifle that I want to try the Pilkington's on, by the way, not these, but an older walnut stocked, blue steel Mauser. |
