Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

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3leggedturtle
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Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

Has anyone heard about using easy off oven cleaner for taking gunstock finishes? If so will it hurt the wood. Don't wanna ruin a nice piece of walnut but the "environmentally safe" is sure taking alot of applications... Todd
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by Sixgun »

Turtledude,
You bet it's good....works pretty much like stripper does......I'll do it a couple of times with steel wooling in between.....when you think you have all the old finish off scrub the wood real good with detergent and warm/hot water.....set it on the window sill to dry...and when it's dry you will notice most all of the slight dents have been raised......oven cleaner is really nothing more than lye and other ingredients in a spray can.

I usually prefer stripper instead as it works a bit faster where I'll let oven cleaner sit overnight with refreshing from time to time. They both will clean the wood of oil stains and dirt.......-----006
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3leggedturtle
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

Thank you Six......
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
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Old No7
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by Old No7 »

Six is correct!

But the normal precautions are advised:

* Have plenty of ventilation!

* * Wear gloves to protect your hands!

But most of all:

* * * Feed all the scrapings to your favorite Democrat!!! :wink:

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marlinman93
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by marlinman93 »

Jasco paint stripper works better, and faster. Same cleanup as Sixgun described afterwards.
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by jeepnik »

Years ago I wanted to finish building a lamp from a 3" 50 caliber shell. My grandfather had started it prior to WW II but never had a chance to finish it. The base is a piece of Philippine mahogany. It had been "varnished" some thirty years earlier and was in sad shape. One of the guy at the shipyard told me about the oven cleaner bit. Turned out great.
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by jnyork »

I have used it on several milsurps, most Russians, sucks all the nasty old oil out of the wood, might have to do it twice. After you wash and scrape ( green kitchen scrubbers work pretty well), leave it out in the sun for a couple of days, turning it over a few times.

I have never tried it on a nice piece of wood.
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

Jeepnik, who did the designs on shell?

Jnyork stock is pretty scratched up and some nicks and dents.

Sixgun, how long do you leave it on? Got some easy off, gonna try tomorrow. Todd
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by M. M. Wright »

Oven cleaner works well on the glass door of my wood stove which blacks out after a few weeks of use and the only way to see the fire is to clean the glass.
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by Sixgun »

Turtledude...trial and error by the type of finish.......at least a couple of hours then steel wool and see what you got.......soak it up good ..wait some and spray on some more....I've left them overnight......leaving it on long won't hurt it but use common sense...don't put it on and then take a trip to Alaska ... :D

If you have it..fine....if your going to to buy it just buy regular stripper.....stripper is like oven cleaner on steroids and does a more thorough job in 1/4 of the time....---6...o...da....bro...
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DocRock
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by DocRock »

It'll also take the enamel off your teeth and, probably destroy any Covid balls floating around. Too harsh for my tastes. I have done three stocks with Citristrip in the past nine months and I am sold! Coat, wait a half hour, scrub off with scotch-brite type pads, coat again and paper towels. Let it dry out and then hit it with a citrus degreaser like Zep to get any remaining stain out. Seems mild stuff, no getting high on the fumes, and the stock ends up clean, dry and ready to steam or finish. On the other hand, if it's a cosmoline impregnated Mosin stock, the oven cleaner is probably just right. :D
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by gamekeeper »

M. M. Wright wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:55 pm Oven cleaner works well on the glass door of my wood stove which blacks out after a few weeks of use and the only way to see the fire is to clean the glass.
I use it for that too, never thought of using it on wood though... :idea:
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by GunnyMack »

M. M. Wright wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:55 pm Oven cleaner works well on the glass door of my wood stove which blacks out after a few weeks of use and the only way to see the fire is to clean the glass.
Go buy a bottle of ammonia, works wonders on blackened glass. Although the fumes are strong it works very well.

And if you want to 'fume' wood for color, ammonia in an air tight box does make a nice rich dark color. Normally used on blond woods to make them dark.
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3leggedturtle
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

The trial and error and experiment has begun. I also have been straightening out deer antler by boiling it and putting in vice! Ordered some bronze and stainless steel toothbrushes to clean out checkering, and toughen up my gums! Todd/3leg
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
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jeepnik
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by jeepnik »

3leggedturtle wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:52 pm Jeepnik, who did the designs on shell?

Jnyork stock is pretty scratched up and some nicks and dents.

Sixgun, how long do you leave it on? Got some easy off, gonna try tomorrow. Todd
Eons ago when my grandfather was in the Navy it was a common "art" form for machinist mates. In this case he took a 3" 50 caliber practice shell. They hollow out the shell, scribe the pattern on the case. Then fill it with wet sand and hand punch the pattern. It takes a lot of time, but sailors often had time, and more importantly, no video games or phones.

The base is turned on a lathe. A little interruption called WW II got in the way of his finishing it. He passed in late 1942 and the unfinished lamp floated around the family until I finished it in 1978. You can imagine the state of the wood and the tarnish on the shell. The wood was easy. Strip it and re-varnish it. The metal bits took hours of cleaning with everything from naval jelly to never dull. I had a shop do an antique finish on it. I should have ask first, because they had to chemically clean in first. I could have avoided a lot of scrubbing. But I was working graveyards in a shipyard and had plenty of time.

There is another lamp of this type somewhere in the family. But it has an indian head pattern. That one he did manage to finish. A third was done using a lost wax process. It is a lighthouse on a rocky shore with waves breaking on the rocks. Sadly I never met the gentleman, and don't have a 10th of his talent. But every time I look at the lamp it does remind me of where I came from.
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3leggedturtle
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

Jeepnik, hope you attach that write-up to lamp so the history is known for the future. Thanks for telling it Todd
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by coyote nose »

Oh yes I have used oven cleaner on gunstocks. Not anymore. It works great on some walnut stocks, then for no apparent reason it will horrendously stain a different walnut stock. I have had a terrible gray color on one of them that required MUCH sanding to remove, and another turned a gray-green. No idea why it worked so great on some and not on those...perhaps trace elements the tree picked up from the ground and got incorporated into the wood???. But by far the worse, and the one that I finally said "enough" on, was a Chinese SKS. I have no idea what the wood was but oven cleaner just ate it. I mean the grain became large "whiskers" as the oven cleaner evidently decayed whatever held the wood grain together. I soaked the wood in a vinegar solution first to neutralize the lye, then a baking soda solution, then lots of water and let it dry. No good. Wound up putting a synthetic stock on the thing. Now I use the citrus stripper....slower but no nasty surprises.
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3leggedturtle
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

Coyote nose, yeah my stock has a weird dark color to it now, so i was thinking almost exactly what you just said. But it's all a learning experience, so I will start sanding it some and maybe try a stain down the road at some point. But all the nucks are scratches are no longer there, just like ot'SIX said they would. thanks all Todd/3leg
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
765x53
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Re: Easy Off oven cleaner for gunstock?

Post by 765x53 »

For something a little milder.
For many years I have been using this formula from "Shopsmith" :
2 qt. toluol or xylol;
1 qt. denatured alcohol;
1 qt. acetone;
Apply with 0000 steel wool and remove as much or as little finish as desired.
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