Thread: Wood scale oil?

Hi MisterClean,

As SutiCat mentioned, there's a myriad options in front of you. I haven't yet worked on custom scales myself (though a personal project is just waiting on some spare time) but I have lots of experience with woodworking, including work on WWII rifles plus a childhood of a grandpa that was a professional carpenter, two uncles that are high end carpenters in Paris, and a father that sells high end office furniture (made out of all kinds of exotic woods) plus carpentry work at home any given weekend I'd help him with. If you want to maintain a "natural" look and feel, then oil finishes are your best bet. The most common are boiled linseed oil and tung oil. The boiled linseed oil will leave the wood very light, the tung oil will darken it quite a bit and make the natural rings in the wood really "pop". Both finishes should be wiped on with a lint-free rag, wipe the excess off, and then let it soak/cure for 24hrs. The more "coats" you apply the more waterproof your result- with added coats of the linseed oil your wood will get more and more of a golden glow; with added costs of the tung oil your wood will get darker. Both oils will leave your wood feeling very natural and soft to the touch, making it seem more natural/artisanal in nature. They both harden your wood slightly, but don't form a hard outer layer like laquers, polyurethanes/epoxies will. If you hit them hard enough, it will leave a ding. The finish needs to be reapplied (just one or two coats) about once a year to keep the scales waterproof (as the older oil sinks deeper into the wood and repetitive use wears some off the surface). The great news of this kind of finish is that after several coats or years, if you decide to go for a laquer/epoxy you can just add it on, right on top. Laquers/epoxies leave a hard surface coat on the outside of your wood, so it ends up feeling very slick and "unnatural". You apply a coat, let it dry, the use 00/000 steel wool on the surface, and apply another coat: the more times you repeat the harder and more "glassy" the surface will be. This leaves a much harder and waterproof, permanent surface on your wood, but if it's hit hard enough it will "crack" leaving a spiderweb pattern. Once you laquer/epoxy you can't change your mind with scales, as sanding down past your penetration into the scales will leave you with too thin/little material (unless you're just sanding deep enough to apply another coat of the same, which is fine).

If you decide on the tung oil be careful, as a lot of the OTC tung oil "finishes" are a mixture of enough tung oil to penetrate the wood and darken it a bit, with a polyurethane mixed in to form that hard outer shell. You want pure Tung oil, not a mixture.