re-re finishing walnut

[smylee grouch]

A young lad came to see me with a TC Hawken that he and his dad had refinished, with a boiled linseed oil new finish. After they were done they could see all the scratches that they still had left and they wanted to know if sanding over the BLO would work and if it would work what grade sandpaper should they use. Has any one on this forum done something similar? I told them to start with 100 wt. sand paper and work up to 220. Will the wood whisker the same as non oiled wood if the BLO has soaked into the wood very far?

[Daryl]

I suspect by the time they remove the scratches, the oil will be mostly gone.

The finish will likely gum up the paper quite quickly until they get down to the wood and even then.

As wood will be removed, quite likely it will whisker 'some', or not - really doesn't matter - should be attempted & what happens, happens.

[Hungry Horse]

I'd start with a scraper, to get the surface linseed oil off. Otherwise it will be a gummy mess. You could use a good stripper since you are going to resand, and refinish. That would be quicker, and less likely to add more scratches.

 Hungry Horse

[Eric Krewson]

I refinished a really rough Renegade stock a few months ago, it looked like someone had used it as a baseball bat to hit rocks.



Stripped it with furniture stripper, steamed out the majority of the dents with a wet wash cloth and steam iron, sanded until I was blue in the face then took it out in the setting sun to rotate it so all the remaining scratches would show up. I used a scraper to get the scratches out then resanded. I never used anything courser than 220.

The stock came out really nice with Chambers oil finish.

[ron w]

wet sand using spirits or paint thinner as the wetting agent. as you sand the you will produce a muddy looking slurry of wood and wet substrate. the muddier the substrate looks the more wood you are cutting. use blocks and pads to keep the sanded planes true and always remember that sanding in one area to eliminate a scratch or nick, means sanding a larger area to blend the wood removal at the damaged area into the rest of the stock.

[smylee grouch]

Thanks for all the replies so far. I have copied them and gave them to the young man so he can use the info in his work.