Soaking in acetone won't hurt the wood as mentioned.
I use lacquer thinner instead of acetone to soak wood stocks in if I need to clear them of oil and it'll take most old finishes off too.
It's cheaper to buy and I reuse the stuff. It doesn't evaporate on me while I'm looking at it!
Some stocks I've let soak for days they are so oil saturated (old SxS stocks). Pistol grips I just put in a jar of the stuff. Shotgun and rifle stocks I double plastic bag heavey duty freezer bags, put the stock(s) inside and pout in some lac thinner. Then roll up the bag and you can cover the wood inside with a lot less thinner than if you try and fill a large container that the stock(s) will fit into.
I still place the whole thing inside a bucket just in case I puncture the bag and the stuff runs out.
(I usually still cover with whiting powder after that to draw the last vestige of oil from these beauties. But pistol grips and shotgun forends can usually be cleared with just the soaking)
The lacquer thinner will dry from the wood inside and out completely in about 30min once pulled from the stuff. I usually let them hang for a day anyway,
If acetone,,it'll dry in a a couple minutes.
You can mix a little boiled linseed oil w/TruOil,,it'll just slow down the drying time. TruOil is a linseed oil based varnish is all,,nothing spaceage secret there.
I don't care for it personally but many have great results with it.
I do like the Tung Oil Varnish like Formbys. I've used it on everything from small projects to full restorations and custom projects.
Like TruOil with it's linseed oil base,,,Formbys is a Varnish made with Tung oil as the oil base. There is really very little %Tung oil in it,, some will say it has none! but that comes from a WoodWorking Magazine article a few years back and just gets regurgitated on the net forever. Formbys is diluted w/ mineral spirits to a so called wiping varnish consistancy for DIY furniture refin use. It might be the mineral spirits smell that bothers you in the stuff.
It does dry much faster than TruOil.
What really makes any 'varnish finish' harder, more water or wear resistant, ect is the resin used in the varnish.
Can be anything from a natural compound to a man made chemical compound. Some are better than others at doing certain things.
Some color wood, some change color over time, some crack and craze, some wear easier than others.
The oil in the varnish is the vehicle to be able to apply the varnish to the wood. It drys and then givens what ever added protection it can beyond what the dryed resin does. Linseed is at the bottom of the scale,,Tung oil is more towards the top.
Other ingredients in the varnishes are driers and solvents.
Adding more of the base oil to the varnish like more linseed to the TruOil, creats a 'long oil' varnish. Varnishes are catagorized by short, med, and long oil types. The short oil is less oil in the mix. Dries the quickest, but can leave the resin coating brittle, less able to move with the wood & humidity changes. Long oil varnishes have the most oil in the mix,,they dry the slowest.
You hear about the extra slow drying furniture finishes of old sometimes,,just heavy on the oil. But they do allow for the resins (certain ones) to remain elastic and remain smoother over time.
They dry to a higher gloss generally due to the slow dry time.
Not all resins are compatible with short. med and long oil mixtures,,especially the man made resins often used now.
It's quite a science to come up with something that protects, goes on easy, drys quick and finishes out with little or no work afterwards.
That's what the average homeowner/refinisher wants.
The DIY industry drives most of what you see on the shelves in the stores.
FWIW,,shellac is a varnish too. 'Spirit Varnish',
Alcohol based instead of oil based. The resin is the crushed up and desolved laq bugs in the alcohol 'vehicle'.
It was a very common wood finish in the gun industry and many US and foreign sporting arms stocks were finished with nothing but shellac (usually orange shellac).
You can build a finish on a piece of wood with any liquid that will dry. No secret science in that. If you are doing restoration or matching old work, you pick and choose and sometimes combine finishes to get the exact look you want for the piece.
Just some thoughts
