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Whats the best way to remove varnish on wooden gun stocks, i want to goi back to bare wood and use BLO as my favoured finish.
I have tried Nitromorse, Cellulose thinners, and a few others i have in the workshop and nothing seems to touch it.
I dont want to use caustic soda for obvious reasons, been told a heat gun and a sharp scraper work but not sure about that method, sounds like hard work.

Hello
Please don`t put a heat gun anywhere near it, you will end up with black impossible to remove burn marks unless you have the touch of an angel do not. All of the paint and varnish removers now have to comply with EU regulations that mean you are virtually trying to remove paint and varnish with rice pudding, You can still obtain the old nitromores removal stripper that has an unmistakable odour and stings like buggery if you get it on your fingers, but its only available for industrial users, have a look on eBay I got some a while ago but had to sign a declaration of use before they would send it to me, if you are any near Greater Manchester I will decant some for you.

I have successfully removed a modern lacquer finish from a stock with a hot air gun without burning the wood. I used my hot air gun on its low setting and a paint scraper. I am assuming you are using BLO because you want a gloss finish rather than plain linseed oil for a military rifle look.

Thanks for the replys, i dont really like the idea of useing a heat gun thought it might warp the wood didnt think about it scorching the wood.
I have watched a few videos on line but they all seem to use US made products not available here ie over cleaner type products.
Heard about mixing Caustic soda and wallpaper glue to make up a nitromorse solution but that sounds a bit dodgy as well, so will have a look on Ebay see whats around.
I live in the north lancs/south lakes area and theres not many specialist paint suppliers around only the DIY stores which are not very good for these type of products.
Ref BLO i like a very slight oil finished shine to the wood but also use linseed oil as well on my military rifle woid work, just dont like shiny or glossy finishes and my latest two purposes have shiny glossy wood work which has to go.

There was a post on here some years back from an American member - he stripped and refinished a Schmidt Rubin. I believe he used the caustic soda method and there was a photo of him putting the stock into a bath. I searched for the post some while back but could not find it.

Redcat

I've used this stuff with good effect. Better than modern Nitroremorse not as good as old Nitromors.
It's got bits of real panther in it, so you know it's good. 60% of the time it works EVERY time.

https://www.barrettinepro.co.uk/25/308/Paint-Panther

Hi Thanks for that will give it a go, not too keen on dipping it into caustic soda, but this stuffs worth a try.
Cheers Ian

I hope you are not removing the original stock finish from military rifles.
Regards
Peter.

I have removed varnish from stocks using broken glass to scrape it off. Then glass paper and finally W&D with Linseed oil on it. Nitromors is bloody messy.

Richo wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 7:27 pm Whats the best way to remove varnish on wooden gun stocks, i want to goi back to bare wood and use BLO as my favoured finish.
I have tried Nitromorse, Cellulose thinners, and a few others i have in the workshop and nothing seems to touch it.
I dont want to use caustic soda for obvious reasons, been told a heat gun and a sharp scraper work but not sure about that method, sounds like hard work.

Use the Wilco (Wilkinsons) paint stripper and follow the instructions. You can scrape the puckered varnish off with a stanley blade.