One of the very BEST finished I've ever applied came about mostly by accident! I had a nice newWinchester Model 47 .22 single-shot that came from Sears & Roebuck with an unfinished stock. Not "knowing any better" in those days, I sanded it smooth and usedspar varnish on it. Two or three coats, IIRC.

Now a year or so later, I read in a gun magazine about how nice walnut gunstocksdeserve a hand-rubbed Linseed oil finish. So I sanded the varnish down flush wit the wood, finishing with 400A wet or dry paper, then did a "polishing job" with the finest steel wool I could find. 0000?? Don't recall!

Well, it seems that what I had done in my ignorance was to have filled all the pores in the wood grain withvarnish, so the surface was absolutely smooth and filled. I didn't even realize it at the time, but I had completed filling and smoothing the wood in the best possible, although labor-intensive, way prior to applying the oil!

The oil I used was plain old boiled linseed oil, no driers, no nuthin'. The instructions in the magazine (Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, or one of those) said to use very little oil, and rub it into the wood with your bare hand until the heel of your hand got so hot it almost blisteredyour hand, then after treating thewhole stock this way, set the stock aside for two or three days (depending on ambient humidity) so that it is thoroughly dry to the touch before rubbing in the next coat. Repeat. Do this as much as ten times, letting the stock dry for several weeks after the last coat.

I followed the directions exactly, but I was not particularly pleased with the appearance of the final result after the tenth coat. So, I reassembled the rifle, and put it away in a wool-lined soft gun case. (Another mistake, I learned later. However, I was lucky this time, the gun did not rust.) I left the riflein the case for a month or so, and when I took it out, the stock had become beautiful! It literally glowed from within with a soft sheen, not shiny at all, looking for all the world like the "London Oil" finish one sees on Best Grade guns. And it was obvious that the finish was IN, not ON, the stock! I cannot explain HOW that finish got so much better while in that gun case, but it did!! Imagine my surprise when I saw the change!

This little tale is provided as merely a story of what happened to me the very first time I tried to refinish a stock. I have not used a straight Linseed oil finish since then, after finding out that Linseed oil makes about the poorest finish of all as regards keeping moisture out of the stock wood, even if the finish looks fabulous.