I've been using BLO for years.  I love the way it smells and what it does on wood furniture I've made.  I've never tried using Raw Linseed Oil (RLO a.k.a. Filtered flaxseed oil w/ no additives)  but I've heard rumors about how it color shifts faster due to having fatty acids or some such that BLO doesn't have.  I saw a bottle of this stuff at whole foods so I grabbed one and figured I'd give it a shot.  Across the internet I've found people saying "weeks" to "months" to "years" for the color shift to occur.  I do have a few rifle stocks (non-US rifle) that have BLO rubbed on them for 10ish years now.  None of them really have changed color to a reddish hue so I'm inclined to believe the comments of, "BLO won't cause a reddish hue."  

The stock I'm using it on is a refurb replacement scant 03A3 drill rifle stock that I stripped the varnish finish off of as best I could (some tiny patches remain - it's a bitch to get that crap off).  It had one coat of BLO rubbed in sometime last summer and is obviously pretty dry.  I honestly couldn't tell much of a difference in the application of the oil it soaked in, and when I came back an hour or more later it was more or less completely "dry".  By "dry" I mean when I went to buff the excess off the surface there was almost none left or transferred to a clean paper towel.  

I'm planning on sticking to the mantra of once a day for a week, once a week for a month, and once a month for the rest of your life at a minimum.  I might do a few coats in a day depending on how the wood reacts to soaking up the oil.  It's pretty dry here in Colorado so the wood may be "thirstier" than in other places.  

Original before stripping the "parade gloss" varnish





1 coat BLO 1 coat RLO 





and a comparison to another drill rifle stock that I have not yet touched.  You can see it's dirty, dry, but the original reddish hue is intact.  I'll probably just use denatured alcohol to clean some of the surface dirt off then go straight to oil on it.  You CAN just go straight to oil, and it will remove the dirt, but why not clean it first if you can do it fairly quickly.  



I'll probably not update the OP, but rather just reply with new pics/updates, as I add additional coats of oil.  I'll start taking the pics in a more controlled environment so the color shift will be more easily noticed.  Probably on my workbench in the garage or the concrete patio in my back yard.  

Tag.

Raw linseed is great stuff...As long as it's unrefined it retains the fatty acids that cause the color change.

Here's a fresh coat from a couple days ago on a 6 mil Garand I just received...Though, admittedly, the stock was already a nice red hue so I'm just sprucing it up...

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Springfield Armory ( the real one ) has been staining then oiling the stocks for a 100+ years. The 1903s particularly exhibit the reddish stain.

I wanted to start using BLO (Klean strip is the manufacture) to help restore my fist SA M1. There are patches of varnish on the stock and she looks very dry. I am somewhat hesitant to even touch it with 000 steel wool to remove the spotty varnish. I checked out you tube to see how people are maintaining their original walnut stocks but didn't see anything specifically that I'm comfortable with. Any advise as I don't want to lose any of the original character of the stock appearnce.

Looking forward to seeing your results

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I don't see any varnish on there.  Are you sure there is?  It just looks dirty and dry to me.  A paper towel dampened with denatured alcohol will help remove the dirt without hurting the finish.  Then you can rub in oil and it'll rejuvenate it.  It might lighten up a bit but that's the dirt coming off.  

You won't destroy the cartouche with 000 wool so long as you don't let it get dry, be heavy handed right over the cartouches, and go at it like a retard on a drum set.  

I'm about to go down to the basement to do some cleaning/organizing.  I'll snap some pics and rub in another coat of oil.  My wife's going through her "nesting" phase right now and I've cleaned and re-organized the entire house twice...Oddly this is the cleanest the entire house has been in 3+ years and my office and garage/workshop is the messiest it's ever been 

I'm all over that stock nice follow-up OP.

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I'm sort of lost about what exactly you are trying to accomplish.  But I like the scant stock.  I bought one for my 03A3 too and it's nice.  Although a C stock would really be sweet.  

Is it that it loses the red hue and you want to put that back in????   I never even gave a second thought to the color when I did my Garand and 03A3's stocks.  I put them in the dishwasher, then rubbed them with BLO a few times.  I forget how many.  Enough for it look like it was done.  

I didn't redo my scant stock.  It looked fine as is.

Science...I'm trying to accomplish science.  Mostly this is just a timeline log of from initial application till a color shift happens.  BLO doesn't really cause much, if any, color change in the short term (I have stocks that are 10yrs old that have no great change in color).  People claim that RLO/flaxseed oil does and that it was the original finish on some Garand stocks back in the day, and this is the reason for the reddish hue we see today.  

I had to strip the hell out of that stock to remove the varnish that was applied to it during it's life as a drill rifle.  Sadly the nice coloring was lost but such is life and it looks a lot better naked than it ever did glossed up.  So this is a good test case

On a side note....coat 3 went on last night and mostly soaked in.  I'll do coat 4 this evening to give it maximum time to "soak in."  I'm also thinking about squirting some flaxseed oil into two small glass jars.  One I'll keep inside on the counter the other I'll put outside in the sun.  The bottle I have says to keep it refridgerated or in the freezer for "maximum freshness".  Health food blogs do state that the oil will go rancid pretty quickly if left out.  I read someone's account that the oil changed color when exposed to the sun in about a week, so why not try it out....for science .  

That's a really nice looking Garand Basically that's what I want to do is spruce up my stock. I dont want to take anything away from its original character.

Aaaa.  Well my Garand stock never really got a redish hue to it.  It's more like....  just brown.  I only used BLO though.  Same thing with my 03A3, I think.  I'll have to look at that one more.  Now the scant stock I got for it, that was kind of reddish.  But I left that one.

3 coats of RLO.  I'll keep taking pics of it in the same spot on the fence at approximately the same time every day.  




Its currently sitting against the fence soaking in coat #4 while basking in the sunlight for a few a little while.

Woke up this morning and put the stock in the back yard for some sun exposure time. It was dry so I rubbed on another coat of oil.  It's currently sitting out soaking up some more sunlight. Planning on leaving it out all day today. Might even get another coat in before the sun goes down. 

Interestigly its still soaking up the vast majority of the oil I put on it. The dry paper towel rub down has hardly any transfer. 

Thanks for taking the time with the info and using the fence as contrast highlights your progress. Looking good.

I sorta screwed up with this last coat. I had to run to an appointment and didn't buff the oil before I left. It was a bit gummy when I finally got to it. Using a red shop rag (the cheap kind you get from HF) is a good alternative to burlap. With some elbow grease I buffed all of the "gumminess" away. Put the stock back in the sunlight and will buff again tonight before I leave it to sit. Will probably skip doing a coat tomorrow just to ensure it's good. 

<ETA> photobucket is about to get the axe.  Their website is painfully slow and full of the bullshit pop up news ads and other misc shit I can't stand.

Good Info OP.

You know Arfcom hosts your photos now; you can upload directly from your phone or computer using SELECT FILE, then UPLOAD at the bottom of the reply box.

I haven't been to photobucket in months, since this is the only place I post photos.

These are from the same day as the last set of photos.  Took these at the same time of day as the previous sets so the color comparison is more accurate.







Didn't get any more photos today.  Was busy trying to knock more things off the honey-do list before baby #2 makes his appearance in the next 2ish weeks

CONTROL PHOTO from my first series out in the back yard.

and the most recent


So there is some color change going on.

I would say very slight color variation maybe to the point where you have actually completed the process. Maybe my eye is not that good.

Yeah it's not a huge shift. But there's definitely a slight shift. Rubbed another coat on but got home too late for pics. 

I got home an hour after I have been taking the pics and by the time I finished my wife fix dinner it was too late. 

Rubbed another coat of oil in and buffed with a red shop rag. I noticed that the oil isn't soaking in like it used to on previous coats so the wood is getting "saturated". Which makes sense since I have now just finished the "one coat a day for a week" part of the saying. 

Maybe my eye is not that bad. Looking forward to the finished product.

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Those are taken about 30min later than usual. I think I see a slight change but I can't tell for certain. I could be trying to convince myself that it's working faster than it reall is . 

Now to wait till Sunday before rubbing in another coat. Wonder if that'll happen before my second son decides to make his big debut. 

I definitely see a change. It has darkened up slightly.

The weather forecast this week is hot garbage. Was in the 70's last week and now we are expecting up to a foot of snow this week with cloudy rainy days ahead. LOL Colorado. 

Wont have any outdoor pics as a result. Rubbing in another coat tonight. 

Yano how life happens when you make plans....well my 2nd child was born last week.  Been pretty busy, and tired, and sorta forgot to keep this updated. I rubbed in one coat before he was born and forgot to rub on in this weekend so I'll try to get to that today. 

One thing i have noticed is that RLO polymerizes up differently than BLO it seems like. Hard to describe it but I can feel a difference. 

Congratulations on the new addition. Your hands are full now so concentrate on that newbie. I have been working on my original stock with DAS stamp being careful with the 000 steel wool. I noticed  that its much lighter now for obvious reasons then the original rear and forward hand guards. So I don't want to go crazy with further steel wool rubbing. What I did, is buy a CMP stock and worked on that for a few days and applied I coat of BLO the other night and I thought it looked pretty dam good . So what I'm going to do is go back to my original stock and apply 1 coat of BLO which should give me the desired result with bringing back the darker color to match the forward and rear handguards.  I will post some pictures in a day or two