Had a customer bring in a 1930s shotgun with a cracked stock that taught me a new trick

Honestly, this was about two months ago. A guy walked into my shop in Tulsa with a really old side-by-side, and the stock was split right behind the receiver. My first thought was just to glue and clamp it, maybe pin it. But he mentioned his granddad used to soak cracked wood in linseed oil for a week before any repair. I was skeptical, but I tried it on a scrap piece first. I soaked it in a can of boiled linseed for 7 full days. When I took it out and let it dry, the wood fibers had swollen and closed the crack way more than I expected. It made the final glue-up so much tighter and cleaner. I never would have thought of that pre-soak step on my own. Has anyone else used an oil soak for stabilizing old wood before a repair, or is that just an old-timer thing?