Using the dishwasher to remove cosmoline? :)

[stover]

So knowing that cosmoline turns to a liquid at fairly low temperature, I was thinking about just dissembling my Mosin and putting it in the dishwasher. Has anyone here done this? Would I completely trash my dishwasher and be banned from the kitchen by attempting this?

[olhunter]

..Has anyone here done this? Would I completely trash my dishwasher and be banned from the kitchen by attempting this?

Yes.
Maybe.
Probably.

The oven too.

[Milsurp Collector]

No need to use the dishwasher to remove cosmoline. Low dry heat is best http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting...thod/index.asp

A hair dryer works great.

[headshrinker]

I have used spray oven cleaner with good results.

[devilinblack]

The stocks are too long for the dishwasher or the oven. A clothes steamer works great on the receiver/barrel/bolt, but can screw up the shellac on the stock. A hairdryer is probably safe, but some people have overdone it with heat-guns and scorched the stocks. Most experienced people say don't use oven cleaner it will damage the wood. If you want to remove the shellac there are product that are much less destructive to wood.

I wrapped a couple stocks in towels, sealed them in a black garbage bag and left them on the dash of a parked car, that seems to do the trick nicely. It's hot enough to liquefy and sweat out the cosmoline, but not hot enough to damage anything.

[stover]

The stocks are too long for the dishwasher or the oven. A clothes steamer works great on the receiver/barrel/bolt, but can screw up the shellac on the stock. A hairdryer is probably safe, but some people have overdone it with heat-guns and scorched the stocks. Most experienced people say don't use oven cleaner it will damage the wood. If you want to remove the shellac there are product that are much less destructive to wood.

I wrapped a couple stocks in towels, sealed them in a black garbage bag and left them on the dash of a parked car, that seems to do the trick nicely. It's hot enough to liquefy and sweat out the cosmoline, but not hot enough to damage anything.

hmmm.... not a bad idea. I may just put'em in a trash bag and let them sit in the sun for a while.

[Orlando]

If I want to do a deep cleaning and refinish of the wood here is how I do it. Takes maybe 10 minutes for a compltetly bare clean stock
I first take Purple Power degreaser full strength and put it in a spray bottle.

I then spray down the stock with degreaser, immediataly you will see years of grease. oil and dirt start to roll off

I then take a soft nylon bristle brush and go over the stock.
Rinse well with hot water while rubbing with brush .
I will usually do procedure one more time except the last time wipe dry with cotton towel.
It probably only takes 10 minutes for the whole procedure
If stock is very oil soaked it may take another cleaning .
I then let set to dry out of direct heat source.
If it drys slowly you have a less chance of wood warping.

This is what the wood looks like after drying


I let the stock dry for a day or two before refinishing

[stover]

Wow. Nice. I'll have to go pick some Power Purple up.

[bruss01]

If you are talking about a stock that has been drenched in cosmoline and then stored for many winter/summer cycles in an unheated warehouse, it is not just that there is cosmoline ON the stock.

It is that there is now cosmoline IN the stock.

During the heating/cooling, air has been forced out of the wood (expansion due to heat) and then on the cooling cycle the resulting vacuum has sucked cosmoline down into the wood grain itself. This is why you have people who get an old milsurp gun, strip and refinish the stock, and then can't understand why it still seeps cosmoline? It's because they got all the cosmo off, but they did not get it OUT.

The way to get the cosmo out is to reverse the process. Heat the wood (GENTLY!) which liquifies the cosmo and expands the air in the stock, forcing the cosmo out through the pores in the wood. Wipe it down to remove the cosmo that seeps out. Let the wood cool. You may need to repeat this process several times to get as much cosmo as possible out. I've seen some SKS stocks that were soaked with the stuff. This warming can usually be accomplished in a large oven or in a hot car in the summer. I use layers of paper towels to absorb the cosmo, covered by aluminum foil to prevent mess. It works.

Once folks get this far, they start to realize that there is some pretty decent wood under what remains of a very crappy finish. Die-hard collectors will want to stop here, because anything beyond basic cleaning done to improve the finish also likely alters the collectors value. However, if what you want is a gun you aren't embarrassed to be seen with at the range, you will likely want to strip and re-finish the stock.

Most of these old milsurps have an oil finish. Something that works really well in this regard is Easy-Off Oven Cleaner. The reason is that it contains lye, and lye mixes with the dried oil finish to turn to soap. A green scratchy pad (like for doing dishes) and Easy Off in the bathtub is pretty effective.

Now, a special note here regarding wood and water. You do not want to repeat the process with water that you just reversed with the cosmoline. It is all right to get wood "surface-damp" because you can just wipe it off and you're all good. The problem occurs if you get water down into the grain of the wood, where the cosmo was. That will cause the wood to swell in certain ways that you don't want. That will cause warping and this will be a problem for the rifle stock. This is why the dishwasher method is so controversial. If you mess up, you can warp your stock. But if you're careful, it can do a very nice job of getting all the easy-off residue off and even steam out dents and the last bit of cosmo that the previous process may have missed.

Three important caveats for the dishwasher method.
1 - do this only after you are convinced most of the cosmo is already gone. Trace amounts of cosmo should be no problem. A whole rifle full of that goo will stink up the DW and likely lead to spousal abuse (of you, by your wife).
2 - DO NOT USE DETERGENT! Set the DW to the hottest wash cycle and (IMPORTANT) do NOT DRY!!! I repeat, do not set the DW to DRY.
3 - Know how long the DW takes to run a cycle. 5 minutes before the end of the cycle, hover over the DW like Dracula over a blood bank. The instant the cycle finishes, REMOVE THE STOCK AND TOWEL IT OFF IMMEDIATELY. Let the stock then hang in an average humidity environment (not excessively moist or dry) with modest air circulation (draft, not fan) for a few days. Don't try to accellerate the process because that will result in warping, as will laying/leaning it on something.

4 - optional but recommended - run a load or two with strong detergent in the empty DW afterwards to cleanse any scent that traces of cosmo may have left.

Here's the reasoning... the hot water in the DW does the same thing as hot air in the oven. It heats the stock. Water should not be seeping into the stock for two reasons. Number one, the stock is oily from trace amounts of the cosmo embedded in the wood fibers, and wood/oil do not mix well. Number two, because you are now heating (with hot water) the room temp stock, the air inside will be expanding, creating positive pressure inside the stock. That will force water out/prevent water getting in. Assuming you don't use detergent, that is, because detergent MAKES WATER SOAK IN. That's why firefighters add detergent to the water they dump on forest fires. It makes the water soak in better and therefore more effective at putting out the fire.

If you (like a DUMBASS) put a hot stock fresh from the oven into the dishwasher, it would COOL DOWN because the water in the DW may be hot but the air in the stock is likely even hotter. The stock cools, air contracts, creating a vacuum in the stock, which sucks water into the stock... the wood fibers swell, and viola you got warpage. Same if you leave the wet stock in the DW, eventually that surface moisture WILL soak in if left long enough. And uneven heat from the element in the bottom will not dry the stock, instead it will cause uneven soaking-in of water which again, warpage.

Now you see how many ways there are to screw this up, and why people say "I did the DW and it FUBARD my stock". Because they either didn't understand how the process works or F'd up part of the process. When it works, it works well. When you screw it up, that can be pretty spectacular too, just not in a nice way. CAVEAT AND DISCLAIMER: Please recognize that even if you do everything perfect, if you happen to catch a bad break of some kind there is a very small chance that your stock might warp despite your best efforts. As unlikely as I believe this is, it is still a statistically possible occurance. Proceed at your own risk, acts of God and random rolls of the dice are not my fault.

I did this to my SKS stock and it refinished beautifully. Nearly all of the minor dings/dents are GONE. The new finish (tung oil) took perfectly. Best of all I have no residual seeping of cosmoline even on hot days at the range after shooting for an hour. It really turned out as well as I hoped it would. I would say this in closing. Be patient if you go this route. Let each step complete fully before proceeding to the next. You will not finish this (with satisfactory results) in an afternoon. Allow about 2 weeks all told to get to where you have a dry, stripped stock ready to be sanded and re-finished. It took decades for that cosmo to get in there... it requires time to get it out. Let the heating/cooling cycles finish completely. Allow a day or two between attempts for the cosmo in the wood grain to re-distribute itself. Be patient, grasshopper. Good things come to those who work with the process, rather than rush through it.

[Mac Attack]

I used my dish washer to clean two Garands with great results. Not only does it clean the cosmoline off but it also raises minor dents...Including cartouches

[Orlando]

I used my dish washer to clean two Garands with great results. Not only does it clean the cosmoline off but it also raises minor dents...Including cartouches

And can possibly cause the wood to split and warp because all of the heat and moisture

[Milsurp Collector]

And can possibly cause the wood to split and warp because all of the heat and moisture

+1.

This Garand stock had some tight hairline cracks before I put it in the dishwasher. The dishwasher opened up the cracks.




This M1 Carbine handguard had no visible cracks before I put it in the dishwasher.




You will read on forums people who love the dishwasher like it is the greatest idea ever, and most of the time they get away with it without damaging the wood. But there are other methods that have much less risk and work just as well, but just take a little more time and effort. And oven cleaner should be used to clean ovens, not gun stocks.

If you think 9mm vs. .45ACP or AK vs. AR discussions get heated, you aint seen nuthin till people start talking about the dishwasher!

[shy 7th]

When I heat-treated my Mosin I used the summer sun.

My closet doors are the type that are like sliding doors that double as full-size mirrors so I took them of my closet and stood them up outside on my back yard patio in a < shape. This way I could use the mirrors reflect even more sunlight on the stock. 3x the sun heated the stock to just where it was uncomfortable to hold with my bare hands. Cosmoline was pouring out faster than sweat from a fat man on a treadmill.

All I had to do was walk outside every 15 min and wipe off cosmoline. I didn't have to mess up any of my appliances. I didn't have to actively work on the stock like with a hairdryer. My car doesn't smell like cosmoline. And the best part was that I didn't have to spend a dime doing it.

Obviously, I already had the mirrors so I don't recommend buying some just for this.

[Mac Attack]

And can possibly cause the wood to split and warp because all of the heat and moisture

I chose to do the dishwasher method over the oven cleaner method because I recall my stock would not fit in there and my wife would ***** a brick. I had to remove all trays in my dishwasher to get them to fit. I did not check for cracks before running them through the wash. Maybe I was just lucky because my stocks turned out great and without a single crack.

Oh, I correct my initial post. I used the dishwasher method on 2 garand stocks and one carbine stock without incident.

[odysseus]

YMMV, but dishwashers and wood are not good friends.