Right, that SKS i ordered from Marstar got here a while ago, shoots fine, got some yotes under it's belt. When it came, it was absolutely clogged with cosmoline. I got it all off, best as I could anyway, but the furniture is still kinda sticky with it. Suggestions?
SKS and Cosmoline
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I've done two methods which work well
One: Kerosene, use it outside on a rag and rub it nice, and follow up with some oils for the wood, I suggest disassembling it of course.
Two: Boiling hot water, DAWN Detergent, (BATHTUB) just for the Barrel assembly, with the gas tube off and the spring inside the gas tube lock, Soak just that in there for about 15 minutes and agitate the water, do the same for all the little parts but put it in a bucket of somesort.
Blow-Dry it off REAL good, rub it, make sure there is no water on it, spray it down with rem-oil or a general oil.
Good Luck
One: Kerosene, use it outside on a rag and rub it nice, and follow up with some oils for the wood, I suggest disassembling it of course.
Two: Boiling hot water, DAWN Detergent, (BATHTUB) just for the Barrel assembly, with the gas tube off and the spring inside the gas tube lock, Soak just that in there for about 15 minutes and agitate the water, do the same for all the little parts but put it in a bucket of somesort.
Blow-Dry it off REAL good, rub it, make sure there is no water on it, spray it down with rem-oil or a general oil.
Good Luck
The best ive ever seen for commie cosmo is stock docs recipie he sent me. Rub the stock with go-jo not the waterless but orange go-jo. rinse repeat, take a teaspoon of tsp, thats the degreaser for painting walls, you can find it in any hard ware store, with a little water rub it in not hard, gently let it sit for a few minutes and rinse, worked wonders on mine. no sticky stock to this day. I dont think id use acetone, or caustic solvents. this recipie worked like gang busters and old stock doc knows his stuff
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I personally used the oven cleaner trick and worked great for me. I did it on 2 Mosins and they came out pretty clean. Easy too. Just spray a heavy coat all over the stock, let it sit for about 15 min and go wash it off real good with some powerful dish washing liquid, like DAWN or Joy.
Repeat it 2-3 times. I personally would not go much more than that. You would be amazed how much comes off.
Repeat it 2-3 times. I personally would not go much more than that. You would be amazed how much comes off.
Just a warning: Murphy's oil is a vegetable oil based wood moisturizer. It won't so much get the cosmo out of the wood as it will condition the top few layers of wood, and make THEM look good. Don't be surprised if, days, weeks, or even months down the road, the cosmoline trapped deep within the stock starts seeping out again.
If you've got an dishwasher at home, it's more than worth it to give it the oven cleaner treatment and then stick it in the dishwasher, with a nice coat of detergent on it. We treated an old Mosin stock this way a while back, ran it through the process 2 or 3 times, and the only giveaway that the stock was used were the minor dings and scratches in it.
After that, she'd be ready for whatever you want to put on her, murphys, linseed, teak oil, tung oil, old english, pledge, whatever.I like teak and tung oils personally. Teak if the wood needs darkening, tung if it looks good light. More of a hassle to work with than some other easy finish options, but the quality of a hand rubbed finish from either is equal, and often greater than that of a much more labour intensive finish(spray, dry, steel wool, spray, dry, steel wool, and so on)
If you've got an dishwasher at home, it's more than worth it to give it the oven cleaner treatment and then stick it in the dishwasher, with a nice coat of detergent on it. We treated an old Mosin stock this way a while back, ran it through the process 2 or 3 times, and the only giveaway that the stock was used were the minor dings and scratches in it.
After that, she'd be ready for whatever you want to put on her, murphys, linseed, teak oil, tung oil, old english, pledge, whatever.I like teak and tung oils personally. Teak if the wood needs darkening, tung if it looks good light. More of a hassle to work with than some other easy finish options, but the quality of a hand rubbed finish from either is equal, and often greater than that of a much more labour intensive finish(spray, dry, steel wool, spray, dry, steel wool, and so on)
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Easy-Off oven cleaner.Take that baby apart spray it on good...let sit for an hour and then hose it off. It may take one to three applications.Sand it down when dry and then apply some boiled lin-seed oil.Also check out www.surplusrifle.com that is what I did on several of my weapons.It turned out great.Good Luck!
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2,128 Posts
Danger!
I will defer to previous comments on the cleaning, but be careful with that linseed oil. It will spontaneously combust. My wife used it on furniture and threw the oily rag into a cabinet. It caught fire and Dang near burned the house down! Luckily, the limited air supply in the cabinet limited the spread of the fire. If you use the stuff read the label!! Throw the rag away (outside somewhere)! May help to let the oily rag air dry before disposal.TULAver said:
Tung is supposed to be one of the worst at spontaneously combusting, of the finish oils, at least from what I've been told. The Teak oil I have has warnings all over too. I usually use it with lint free paper towels. They don't soak in as much as cloth rags, and they go up in a quick flash. I believe you can store the rags in kerosene if you don't want to burn them. Kerosene works on Cosmo too, and it's a little less stinky than gasoline nowadays(dang additives, I miss that old gas smell). To that extent, you can even use WD40, but it'd bring in a whole new set of problems 
I don't like cleaning wood with gas or kero though, always seems to alter the colour of the top layer of grain. I imagine it's fine if you're gonna paint over, stain, or sand down a bit. They will work though.
I guess most all of the stuff that's good at degreasing is pretty hazardous in one way or another. I like oven cleaner because it's nice and self contained, easy to use, less need for special cleanup procedures. Oven cleaner, dishwasher, oven cleaner, dishwasher, wood or metal, it's a lazy man's way, but it works.
I don't think this has been mentioned either, but I've done it with a few things. A pressure washer with a good tip will do a fine job getting anything out of your wood without damaging the grain, and if you don't have a washer, there may be enough pressure in the washers at the local car wash to take care of it, though I can't say how much you'd spend in quarters.
That's about all I can think of, I think most every method has been covered now...
I don't like cleaning wood with gas or kero though, always seems to alter the colour of the top layer of grain. I imagine it's fine if you're gonna paint over, stain, or sand down a bit. They will work though.I guess most all of the stuff that's good at degreasing is pretty hazardous in one way or another. I like oven cleaner because it's nice and self contained, easy to use, less need for special cleanup procedures. Oven cleaner, dishwasher, oven cleaner, dishwasher, wood or metal, it's a lazy man's way, but it works.
I don't think this has been mentioned either, but I've done it with a few things. A pressure washer with a good tip will do a fine job getting anything out of your wood without damaging the grain, and if you don't have a washer, there may be enough pressure in the washers at the local car wash to take care of it, though I can't say how much you'd spend in quarters.
That's about all I can think of, I think most every method has been covered now...
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