Preservation and Protection.

[Merick]

There is a lot of information on how to refinish your guns, and it can be a satisfying thing to do. However it is seldom the right thing to do and ABSOLUTELY WILL DESTROY VALUE. I call on anyone who can to help assemble a sticky about how to preserve a specimen in good or collectible shape.

The quick version is keep it clean, keep it dry, and keep it lightly oiled. All this prevents rust. The bluing finish on guns has microscopic pits that hold oil, use just enough to keep them filled. More than that can attract dust, which attracts water, and then rust. Everybody has their own favorite gun oil, and there are entire threads about gun oil alone. Break Free CLP is pretty darn good and easy to find. But when it comes to oil, almost anything is better than nothing. Try to keep it off of the wood and leather.

To keep things dry, silica jell is useful and I'll say necessary in closed spaces. You can get it many places for many prices, but here is a hint; they sell it in bulk as cat litter additive. I scoop some into womens' knee high panty hose, tie it off and throw one into every ammo can, and a handful into a safe. Over time it gets saturated with moisture but you can dry the stuff out in an oven on LOW heat for 20 minutes every few months. (200f or less depending on what stockings you bought, ask your mom if you can use the stove first if your not sure.)

Beyond that if you have a collector that you are never going to shoot there is some stuff called renaissance wax. You can read about it and other good ideas here
http://www.thegca.org/images/Preserving.pdf
and here
http://www.nps.gov/spar/historyculture/guncare.htm

That is about all I have, if you have something to add by all means lets hear it. Lets make this thread as useful as we can.