Reply To: BLO
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I’m going to be the squeaky wheel here just to give a different perspective. I’ve invested a fair bit of effort learning finishing from a professional finisher that’s done this stuff as a career for many years. The first thing he taught me is to not waste my time on BLO. With one exception, it has no good properties. It takes too long to dry. It builds slowly. It can lead to adhesion issues. The list goes on. The one place where it can be useful is as the very bottom most layer in a finishing schedule where it is used to give depth and chatoyance to the finish. So, it goes onto naked or dyed wood and then a barrier coat of shellac goes on. But, even here, you must face the long dry times and there are modern oils you can use that do the exact same thing (visually), but will be dry overnight or sooner.
If you are in the US and want alternatives, look into several things. For oils, I’ve had good look with Waterlox original and General Finishes Arm R Seal. Waterlox will have a medium to semi-gloss sheen. It’s challenge is that it really, really likes to run, so you must wipe quite a few thing coats. They offer a satin top coat, but I’ve been discouraged by what I’ve read and so have not tried the satin on furniture. The Arm R Seal has given me my most durable table tops, but in a recent project I had unsolvable problems with it that led me tos and it off. I don’t know if it was me or if Arm R Seal has changed. For water born options, I’ve done a number of projects with General Finishes products. I use their dye stains to get color. Ignore the name…they are close to pure dyes and do not have enough binder to be called a stain. So, you can apply as many coats as you like and get darker and darker (a curse and a blessing). Their stains are good too, but I just like to work with dyes. For topcoats, their High Performance product works well. I’ve brushed it and sprayed it. I just had my first problem with it last weekend, but right now think it is me, not it. One thing to be aware of is that, if you use water based dye, then the water based top coat will lift it when you try to brush the topcoat. The general plan of attack, then, if you cannot spray, is to put on the dye (it’s not that simple), let it dry overnight, and then wipe on a coat of gloss Arm R Seal. The Arm R Seal is an oil, so it will not lift the water based dye. Feed the stuff on until it isn’t absorbing any more and then wipe off the excess. Let it dry *72 hours* and the build your top coats with the High Performance water borne finish. If you want to keep going with the oil, you don’t need to wait the 72 hours, but you must deal with the properties of oils. You could use Waterlox instead of the Arm R Seal. For both the Arm R Seal and Waterlox, buy a bottle of Bloxygen or you’ll throw away most of your can of finish and buy the minimum size can that you need.
All finishing oils are like BLO in the sense of being combustion and self-combustion hazards. There’s no free lunch there.
Sorry for the monolithic paragraph. Have to get started with my work day and don’t have time to edit. Bottom line- If you talk to professional finishers, you’ll find BLO has very limited attractiveness to them, but it is like Magic Super Juice on the internet. This is when a bunch of people will jump in and say I’m nuts. That’s fine. For me, I can do more, better, faster using other materials in my shop. Traditional joinery is brilliant, timeless, and will have utility until the end of time, but chemistry has moved on since the 1600’s.