Thoughts on Finishes
" Big Iron" has been dead almost ten years; I have had that manuscript on my disk for 12 or 14 years and have sent it out 10 or 15 times a year. I just re read it for the first time in a good many years; I didn't do bad for a beginner.
With respect to putting on a modern oil finish, assuming you don't have a 25 year old can of spar varnish or boiled linseed oil stored away, you must consider that leadless linseed oil is a host for bacterial or fungus growth.
Second, the traditional oil finish is in the wood, not on the wood. It is possible to quickly put on a hardened oil coating, but an oil finish requires time for the oil to soak into the wood.
The time required to put on a hardened oil coating depends on the amount of drier that is added. Lin Speed and other commercial oil finishes used a lot of drier and produced a good coating in a few days.
Best, Austin
|