1.  What has been done to the wood when you buy it?

2.  Does it need to be protected?

3.  If it does, I'm thinking of doing boiled linseed oil.  How hard is this do, and how easy is it to mess up.

I just oiled it. I like the way it is.

I bought Tru Oil for 6 dollars. I put 5 or 6 coats on and used steel wool for a quick wipedown in between coats. I should have sanded before and really took my time but its  Wasr and now the wood is protected. When complete you can leave it shiny or use the steel wool to buff it and take down the shine to your desired level. Whole process cost less than ten dollars and each coat took less than 5 minutes to apply. too easy

The main thing is if you do not finish sand the stock first it will show up more when you do an oil finish somthing to think about and check with any of these products are there contents like the ones wlly world sells have carcinogens I found out from readin the info on the can i had from the first pic so I degreased and refinshed the stocks in the teak oil finish for peace of mind. There is actaully a pure linseed oil that performs better but take longer to dry becuase it does not have any chemicals added to help it dry faster. These chemicals are the issue I am talking about.
Don't forget about tung oil also another great finish I have used on ak's looks great also.

These pics are in watco teak oil another romy g stock set

My favorite finish for AK wood is amber shellac. Lightly sand the furniture, then wipe down with acetone or denatured alcohol, let dry. Mix the shellac with denatured alcohol, 2 parts shellac to one part alcohol, then apply to your furntiure by wiping on light coats with a cotton rag (old t-shorts work great). The shellac will dry in about an hour; do as many coats as you like until the finish builds up.

Shellac is waterproof when hardened, and is very forgiving - you can just apply a new coat over the last one when you want to freshen it up.

Good luck!

The WASR-10 wood I've seen has had it's original finish belt-sanded off and left dry.

There's not much that's going to hurt that plain laminate.  Being let outside in the rain for a few years might cause the laminations to start separating.

Dip it in linseed oil, if you want, but I wouldn't worry about it.

Bought walnut AK set from Ironwood, (Woodpile - 2nds)
Sanded  and stained with MinWax oil stain  then used 5-6 coats of Tru Oil  steel wooled lightly between coats of Tru-Oil
Looks good and has held up well for past 8 months of use.

Hey, man, great job. Still looks military, not like a freakin' end table, and it has some protection from weather.

Yep I did one in red flavor once but it just wasn't for me so I stripped it and redid it in teak for a friend and he loved it. At some point I may try a amber shellac but with oils being so easy I am in no hurry.

They are basically scrap lumber, but.....

You can protect them and make them look a bit nicer without going over the top.

I finished mine with Danish oil (I used red mahogany Watco Danish oil, wetsanding, etc). I also stained mine red first.



There is a recent thread about this and several others.

I wanted to simulate the original rough/sloppy finish on the Romanian surplus stock set I put on my SAR1, I striped the original finish off, rough sanded it (smooth, but not furniture smooth), light coat of a brown stain to darken it a bit (no clue which one, not too dark) and put on one kinda thick coat of matte finish polyurethane.  Left in brush strokes and few minor runs.  Looks very close to original Romanian stock sets I've seen it and seems pretty durable.  I like my stock sets to look they originally did not like fine furniture.