Dean
In your second to last post, you seem to focus on the sunflower oil. In my earlier posts, I listed the published ingredients of Timberlux; I also did the same for Tru-Oil.
I truly don’t know the benefits or drawbacks to using sunflower oil except that it’s food safe, and should be great for cutting boards. That’s about all I can find on sunflower oil as a wood finish/protectant. Not a whole lot of folks using it for exterior/long term applications.
Again, linseed oil, while very popular as a wood finish, has issues; mostly that it does not truly protect wood from moisture, moisture vaper easily penetrates linseed oil.
While doing my research, I quickly determined that I would never know the make-up of Winchester’s wood finishes. So I focused on what materials they had at the time and what materials were used in other industries.
As a result, I focused on musical instruments; in many ways they have the same challenges: change in moisture content can change the note of a fine violin, sweat from hands, different climates etc. I contacted a noted luthier, and had a good hour long conversation with him. Seems that owners of Stradivarius violins are extremely picky about period finish.
I narrowed the primary ingredient list down to 3 or 4, with shellac based being the most common. There was not much to choose from pre-1920
Respectfully
Mike
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