For years I've had two options for oil finishes on wood, I'm really liking a third that is a shortcut.
The traditional options:
1.) The very best finish takes 6-9 months and about 20-40 hours. It's the Purdey finish. A drop a day for a week, a drop a week for 6 weeks. A drop a month for 6 months. Rubbing it down between coats, using rottenstone, etc. This is what should be done for a true best shotgun and perhaps a quarter of a million dollar double rifle. Its not practical for most people or most guns.
2.) The easy traditional route, put mineral spirits on a vintage gun, remove any surface petrochemicals, let it dry for a few minutes, then use Boiled Linseed Oil in small amounts. Typically 3-5-7 coats can reactivate and enrich the original finish. It's not difficult, its moderately slow, and it looks okay.
3.) Dishonorable mention. Truoil. It's horrible. It's pimpy. It has no place on a fine gun unless its a Perazzi or Kolar and you're a trap shooter looking for a crazy high gloss finish.
What I've been playing with for the last few years:
There's a product called Timberluxe. It comes in 2 ounce vials, enough to do MANY rifles. It has more hardeners than option 1 or 2 above, so it cooperates and can rejuvenate and restore a gun or rifle in 2-3 coats put on every other day for less than a week. Application time per coat is about 15 mins. It has a bit of color to it and it can be applied in a few different ways. The normal way is to rub it into the grain on coat one, making a satin finish. Go back two days later and do it again, maybe twice more. If you want a British satin finish, you're done. If you want closer to a best finish, the final coat you apply you do not rub off the surface, you leave it a bit thick and wet. After 3-5 days of hardening, you have more of an italian semi-gloss finish. A vial of this stuff runs around $25 a vial. The vial is good for about 3 weeks before it oxidizes after opening, so its best to do several guns in a short timeframe. This system is very forgiving and you're applying it with fingers, so lint or rubbing out with a cloth is not required at all. The only really important task is to have a used soft toothbrush handy. After every coat, cut the checkering with the toothbrush in all directions to make sure any molecule of oil that fell into the checkering is thinned out. DON'T finish the checkering! At the very end of the process, you can use a toothbrush and very light amounts of oil to cut the checkering with the toothbrush.
Above all, do no harm. Gloppy overzealous finish or shiny, glossy checkering from amateur stock work is absolutely hideous and destroys value.
In conclusion, I like that Timberluxe is MUCH faster to apply, is very forgiving, and yet its just slow enough that you really have to be negligent to create a problem you can't undo. (problem = you put on 10x too much in one go, then put too much on again while the prior coat was still sticky)
