I like the color and finish of the OEM wood handguards.  But it feels like raw wood, and I want to protect it a bit from CLP and cleaning products.  



What sort of finish is used on the original wood?  

I'm think about just slapping some clear semi-gloss polyurethane on the wood.  

- Any problems with this?  

- Do I have to remove it the existing finish first?

- Would boiled linseed oil or Minwax Tung Oil Finish be a better finish option?  

Perhaps there's some sort of finish on there, but it certainly feels like raw wood.
Choice of finish depends on how much darkening of the finish you will accept. If you do nothing, the wood will darken somewhat from dirt, skin oils, etc., so that's kind of inevitable.

BLO or Tung oil finishes will darken the wood, and BLO will impart a bit of yellow tint, but they are easy to apply and easy to freshen up.
Polyurethane will darken the wood less, but it will not be as easy to freshen up the finish.

I tried both BLO and the tung oil finish on mine, but neither gave me the blonde color I was looking for. After those failures, I tried a few darker stains (walnut, mahogany, and a "Russian Red" mix), but never got anything I liked. I ended up with the black polymer handguard from Manticore, which I like much better.  

I'd hit the wood with paint stripper first, just to make sure you're down to raw wood, then sand it a little to smooth out some of the rougher areas.
I do not believe there's any significant amount of oil in these stocks, so TSP isn't necessary from that standpoint, but it does tend to bleach the wood a little, which would offset the darkening effect of whatever finish you choose. In retrospect, TSP might have helped with my handguards.

There was no finish, treatment or anything like that on mine.  Just raw ugly wood.
I stained mine & hit it with some clear poly.   Works for me.  You going to want to take off the wood to do anything with. You really don't want that on your barrel heating up & turning into a mess.

I hit one of my WASRs with a Formby quick finish to keep the light color, but used Kiwi Cordovan shoe wax on another WASR and a PAP to stain/seal them. Used inside and out, about 5 coats of each, even used in cleaning rod hole on the WASRs. All just to seal against moisture.

- OS

BLO is my personal favorite.

I just sanded mine using finer sand paper until I got to a glossy smooth finish.  I started with 200 and worked my way to ? Maybe 800, not sure, but I kept using finer paper until it was smooth.  Then I used some linseed oil.  Here is the result.  It was rough and absorbed oily fingerprints when I started.  The FFL must have passed it around before I got there because the cosmo'ed mags somehow transfered their fingerprints all over the wood.  It sucked that grease up real good.  

Nice job on that wood!  



 

Thanks, I was amazed at how nice it sanded out.   I had planned on using a light coat of stain, but could not bring myself to do it.   I wish I had taken a before photo.

I used some Minwax stuff from the local Lowes.  They say to use some steel wool between coats, but I still have a few little bubbles.  Even with my imperfect stain job, the thing looks 10x better than the original!

Cheers,
EKSB

About 10 rubbed-in coats of BLO, after cleaning the wood with mineral spirits and smoothing it out with some 0000 steel wool. Apply a coat of wood finishing wax afterwards to increase the gloss if you like.

What I like about BLO is if you ding/scratch the wood, you just rub some more in.

Thanks, OhShoot for the tip on using the Kiwi Cordovan as a finish on the PAP.

I just got through doing mine and I'm very pleased with the look and the feel of the finish.  I sanded with 220 first and cleaned with alcohol.  Applied the first coat of Kiwi and buffed with 0000 steel wool.  Applied four more coats and buffed.  Very pleased and I think this will be a durable finish.

Very "authentic" looking, too.

I think the factory seals the beach wood.I used Trueoil and it looks grate.

I just used multiple hand rubbed coats of Teak Oil. I think I followed the sanding directions over on Ironwood Designs website.

Amber Shellac if you want to be lazy and stick to the Commie look. 1 coat is all it takes. 2 if you want to be fancy. Any more and the shellac tries to eat itself.

Wow, that cleaned up raw wood looks way better than I thought it would.  Good job, guys.

FWIW, I used Minwax with minimal prep and it came out pretty good.  I'd go with "Sedona Red" if I were to do it over again, color wise, but the Minwax was really easy to work with.