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31 March 2014 at 11:08 am #43242
I get all my Linseed oil products from http://www.solventfreepaint.com
In addition to their raw and boiled linseed oils I’ve used their linseed oil soap, which amazed me no matter what I tried it on, and the Raw Linseed Oil Beeswax, works great as a “top coat” on cutting boards.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.16 February 2014 at 3:42 pm #27922I know this is an old thread but wanted to throw in my opinion/experience with Linseed Oil Finishing anyway as there appears to be an enormous amount of misinformation on the subject.
The first question I have for anyone who has problems with botched boiled linseed oil (BLO) finishes is simply what are you really applying?
The BLO you can buy for $6-$10 a quart in big box stores is actually raw linseed oil (better described as flaxseed oil) mixed with heavy metal driers and solvents to “boil” or polymerize the oil. Chemical and metal based driers are far less expensive than thermally treating the raw oil thus reducing the overall production process and increasing profits for the manufacturer. If you are using this type of BLO I can’t help you very much because after reading the MSDS I didn’t want it in my home.
What I see most commonly referred to as BLO are premixed Linseed oil finishes which advertise the ability to achieve a hand rubbed finish in one coat. Virtually all of these products are a combination of solvents, chemically modified raw linseed oil and evaporative drying polyurethane. I have limited experience with these but have achieved good results in the past but discontinued using them after review of the MSDS.
Finally there is true thermally modified linseed oil. In the US there are few sources for it but it shares nothing in common with the above mentioned forms of BLO other than the name. First and foremost when you pour this stuff out of the bottle it has a consistency somewhere between that of molasses and motor oil depending on the temperature in the room.
Secondly it should smell like a natural product not a chemical plant.
Applying coats is very different than a varnish, by varnish I mean any finish that contains a color solvent and resin. It soaks into the wood much deeper and drys very slowly, 3-7 days at best. It doesn’t really get tacky like a resin based finish will making it very forgiving and easy to work with. My typical coat involves drenching the piece for several hours adding more to any section that fully absorbed the oil and appears dry. At this point I wipe it off and let the piece sit for several days. I typically wipe the excess off with a paper towel and spread it out next to the piece. As they are both wood based products they react to the oil in similar fashions so the paper towel can be used as a gauge for the wood. Once the paper towel gets stiff and dry it is safe to assume the oil in the wood is in a similar state. You will also see small spots form on the surface where the wood is saturated and excess oil is forced out. To remove these fro. The surface I just scrub at them with a fine abrasives pad or metal wool, steel or bronze. I finished a large hard maple, Mahogany and walnut with organic BLO using this process and after repeating the process 3 times all of the pores in the wood had been filled in and a nice film had developed on the surface.I regularly use Boiled Linseed Oil on projects and it has quickly become the only oil I will apply to cutting boards.
It also does wonders for bringing the wood in antiques back to life and I regularly will apply a coat of oil to a piece to bring out the figure and color in the wood then apply 2-3 coats of long oil varnish as a more protective top coat.
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