Put a coat of shellac on a pine piece and then a coat of stain- Looks really super- Am about to apply some blo as a clear finish and my buddy’s complaining that I should be using poly- Blo’s always been easier for me to work with- Any reason why not? Thanks-
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Replies
Linsed oil is NOT a finish. It's a penetrating oil. It will polymerize (very slowly and never completely) to a small extent in the wood to a very shallow depth (a few hundreths of an inch at most) and form a very inadequate polymerized film on the surface (maybe a few molecules thick) that won't protect the wood very much, if at all.
Clear finish? You've already used shellac. (and then stained over that???) Use shellac for the finish.
Rich
(Yes- Shellac is a great sealer of soft woods for purposes of eliminating stain blotching!!!!!!)
Yeah, I know.I don't stain wood.Got the finish shellac coat on yet?Rich
I'll use poly tomorrow-
Try using a traditional resin varnish. It will offer virtually as much protection, but tend to look a bit better. And, if the shellac you used was not dewaxed shellac, poly could have adhesion problems where alkyd or phenolic varnishes wouldn't have a problem.
Thanks for the thought- It's Zinzer, dewaxed- Amber, and combined with the red stain it's a beautiful color- Thanks again-
If it says Amber on the can, its not dewaxed. Zinsser's only dewaxed product, other than the spray can version, is called Seal Coat.
Dang it, I checked and you're right- So I'll hafta just ago ahead and finish it with another coat of shellac- Learn to French polish, I guess- Or I could tack a little chicken wire over it and plaster it- Or some thin ply wood and get a good coat of enamel on it- Or maybe I should just beat it with a chain and give it that "distressed" look- So many options- I'll let you know- Thanks again-
Why poly? You were going to rely on linseed oil as a finish, but you don't think shellac is up to the task?
No, I don't, in that it's susceptible to water and alcohol, among other things-
What's very interesting is that Thos Moser has been producing very high end solid cherry furniture that is finished with boiled linseed oil with no problems. I've read numerous put downs of BLO for years, so two years ago, I toured the Moser operation to find out what they are doing.
And sure enough, they are using blo - they buy it in 55 gal drums. They do heat it to about 120 degrees if I remember correctly - using indirect drum heaters. The blo is sprayed on, allowed to "settle" for about a half hour at most, then the furniture pieces are wiped down/rubbed with absorbent cloths.
The next day, another coat is sprayed on and the process is repeated. The third day, a coat of carnuba wax is applied and each piece is buffed before it is packaged and shipped.
The finisher said he rarely hears of any problems and Moser sells a "touch-up" kit of blo for the owner to use. Moser's product is high end - the least expensive item - small stools, etc go for just under $1000.
Additionally, the custom furniture maker Christian Becksvoort uses blo (actually Tried & True which has beeswax in it) with no problems either and a solid reputation. And I have made a number of solid cherry pieces with no problems either. I do find applying it heated and then wiping off excess shortly after application works well. And many of the pieces I've made are tables - particularly kitchen table - that receive hard use.
Moser has the advantage of selling high end furniture with sufficient reputation that customers may blame themselves if their is a problem. Besides, its not really that BLO is such a bad finish--it is, but that the demands of a finish on furniture that people expect to take care of are very low. Conversion varnish may have replaced lacquer but its probably more to prevent shipping damage and warehouse problems than to provide for needs of customers in service. Shellac has served for a couple of centuries now. Yes, alcohol (but not a simple spilled martini) will harm it, and so will standing water (but not a glass of icewater left for an hour or so.)
Not sure I agree with you that Moser's customers blame themselves if something goes wrong. I've dealt with a number of "high end customers" who are not only knowledgable but also quite demanding with high expectations. I've visited Moser's retail shops and their sales folks are quite blunt about the finish on the furniture and state if you ever have a problem, please contact them. Their furniture carries an original owner lifetime guarantee for finish and workmanship. And the factory tour backed up what the sales folks are telling customers.
And Christian Becksvoort would not have the recognition he has if his finishes don't live up to his craftsmanship.
I think the real issue is not blo, but the customer who really doesn't understand the product, its application and the end result. The typical can of blo has scant info on application techniques, drying time, etc. It is sold more as a raw material/additive, not as a final finish. Folks I've heard complain about blo really learned more about it through anecdotal info than from craftspeople making a living using it.
I've found too many respected furniture folks using blo with good results to simply dismiss it and instead have spent some time understanding where to use it and where it dosen't work as well - and that's true for other finishes as well.
One point I just checked - Moser applies blo at 170 degrees. That's a big part of the application technique. The only difference between raw and boiled linseed oil is that the blo has additives - dryers, for example. Apparently its called bolied because with the additives, it acts as though it is boiled causing more rapid polyemerization. Hence the application of blo at elevated temperatures does enhance its application and drying. You won't find a can of blo saying that nor will you find that in most finishing books.
Edited 10/24/2006 3:33 pm ET by ETG
It's true that heating decreases viscosity (for a few minutes) and during that time would also increase the rate of chemical reaction or curing. But it wasn't boiling per se that ever made BLO cure more quickly, it was that the boiling served to encorporate somewhat different driers of an earlier era--mostly lead compounds. You can use heat to polymerize BLO by starting its curing reactions in the absense of sufficient air to complete the process. You don't find that on labels because giving general instructions to heat a flammable liquid is probably not very wise.
I won't argue against the idea that some high end customers are quite demanding. The real plus of BLO is that it is so easily repaired. Nonetheless, were it not for marketing reasons I suspect if I were Moser I would be using an oil/varnish mix.
Steve,Buy 'em books, buy 'em books, all they do is eat the covers.If they don't want to learn, there's not much else to say.Shellac and lacquer are the mainstays of my finishing. Linseed oil is a marvelously ororous material that brings out the character of some of the woods I finish, mostly teak and then gets sealed forever under a real finish.Oil has unjustly obtained a reputation as a finish, because it once was all that was available. It got used, it's use became reinforced, and cults grow up about it.It leaves, eventually, a gummy, incompletely hardened mess for a finish, that smells rancid, eventually, that has nothing going for it other than ignorance.The rap against shellac as being damaged by water and alcohol is a lie that has been repeated so many times, people believe it, especially novices. Just how often has a piece of furniture not usually intended as a resting place for an alcoholic drink, actually gotten damaged by one? Ever? Another urban myth? What doesn't follow in the "warning" of the ignorant about this "problem," is that IF a shellac surface DOES get danmaged by alcohol, it's child's play the repair the damage with . . . wait for it . . . alcohol.And while shellac isn't waterproof (what is?) it is extremely water resistant to the point that with any reasonable care for furniture in a home, fear from water damage is nutty.*Sigh*
I usually spill alcohol into my mouth.My furniture has never acquired a taste for it.
Moser et al. are very aware that it's not the wood surface that fails but film finishes. There is a laundry list of markings - haze/blush, white rings, crazing, heat damage, etc. that go with varnish and lacquer.
Not so with oil.
It's easy to guarantee that an oil treatment will keep looking good because it does precisely that.
Edited 10/25/2006 3:37 pm ET by VeriestTyro
Very much aware of that. My house is one of the oldest in my area - built in early 1700's - all the floors original and in good shape. Used two coats of blo - first cut 1/3, second coat full strength - gives a deep mellow look (I know - the original owners would have probably left the floors unfinished or used animal oils). Most of our furniture also is finished in blo or Tried & True - all doing quite well.
And - horrror of horrors! - I've used the 1/3 turp, 1/3 blo and 1/3 vinegar to clean some "semi-old" furniture with great success. Contrary to the stories posted here, no blackening of the finish, gumming, etc. Most of the pieces were done in the 80's and they look great with none of the problems folks talk about. But there are tricks to using the old formula!
I'm sure Rich's laundry list of horrors would be a complete surprise to Messrs. Becksvoort and Moser (and many others). With the prices their work fetches, one is hard pressed to imagine a cascading series of finish failures and the resulting irate, well-heeled customers. They've been at this quite a long time with much apparent success. Oil doesn't appear to be letting them down. I would be more apt to imitate a Chris Becksvoort or Thos. Moser than a Jeff Jewitt or Bob Flexner for example. Do the latter two build and sell furniture for a living? I don't believe so, but I may be wrong. When I think of those two, I think of mind-numbingly intricate finishing routines and surface coloring regimins. All the toning and staining work reminds me of what factories do in an attempt to make Poplar look like 200+ year old Cherry.
Those with a vested interest in finishing - professional refinishers, varnish chemists, etc. naturally have a distaste for oil finishes. Others are just aping what these same 'experts' propound in their books and articles and have virtually no direct experience with oil.
Oil treatments are the cornerstone to a lot of professional furnituremakers' finishing routines.
Good luck with your woodworking.
Edited 10/28/2006 8:43 am ET by VeriestTyro
I've always hated the proposition of arguing against success. One starts in a hole.
People buy Moser and Becksvoort precisely because the piece: 1) has a finish accurate for the period; 2)doesn't have that cheap, slathered on film finish look that rolls out of all factories and not a few custom shops.
Edited 10/25/2006 10:33 am ET by VeriestTyro
"Moser has the advantage of selling high end furniture with sufficient reputation that customers may blame themselves if their [sic] is a problem."
I hope you didn't injure yourself jumping to that conclusion.
Edited 10/25/2006 11:42 am ET by VeriestTyro
Linsed oil is NOT a finish. It's a penetrating oil. It will polymerize (very slowly and never completely) to a small extent in the wood to a very shallow depth (a few hundreths of an inch at most) and form a very inadequate polymerized film on the surface (maybe a few molecules thick) that won't protect the wood very much, if at all.
If I spilled a glass of milk on a dining room table with a linseed oil finish, would the milk absorb into the wood past the 'few hundreths' you mentioned in the time it would take me to go to the kitchen to get a cloth to wipe up the spill? Or for that matter, even if I waited a minute or two?
What precisely is it that we're supposed to be protecting the wood from? It seems pretty stout to me - it takes sharp edge tools to cut it, garnets and carbide to sand it, etc.
We've eaten at a Cherry trestle table with a BLO finish (not Watco) for over fifteen years and it is unblemished. I've spilled black fountain pen ink on it (a whole bottle) wiped it up and not a trace of the spill remained. We set hot serving dishes on the piece, no marks. Nothing. Wet highball glasses have been set on it more times than I care to remember, again, no marks, no rings, nothing.
I'd love to hear about your first-hand experience with the failure of a BLO finish - what substance was spilled, what happened to the wood, etc.
Edited 10/25/2006 4:31 pm ET by VeriestTyro
I personally like BLO, though usually not as a final finish for furniture projects, but often as my preferred treatment for wooden handles (chisels, plane totes and knobs, etc) and my bench. In those uses it offers some protection for the wood without coating it in a way that alters the wood's general friction quotient for handling or working atop. I do have one Jack plane with rose wood handles that I always wipe when I've got out the BLO for something else, and I have to say it has built up a very beautiful, hard and deep finish over many years of these periodic treatments - no stickiness - no rancidness - nothing negative in the slightest.
Samson and others,An oiled wood surface has a very strong visual appeal. It's a very low lustre, pleasant sheen. There is no doubt about that and it's a look worth achieving.The problem with an oil "finish" is that there is nothing at all permanent about it. After a certain amont of time the nice low lustre looks dull, and the "finish" needs to be "refreshed."Once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, once a year forever. There is no real justification for that hoary old formula, but read about oil finishes and you'll find it mentioned. It's been repeated so much for centuries, it must be true.Oil finishes are vestiges of times when nothing more was available. We've come a long way since the dark ages.The truth is, many people don't know what a fine furniture finish really is. No one ever implied that Moser's pieces are going to suffer a catastrophic failure. But if he finishes with nothing but oil, (I have no knowledge of his finishing methods - nor do you) and his customers are "true believers" in the ignorance that a fine finish is something that gets re-applied periodically, well that's their folly.Talk to people who finish guitars with french polish. Ask them about fine finishes. Better, yet, look at a century's-old instrument so finished. Need for reapplication? Don't make me laugh.No, of course you won't notice a molecule of rancid oil on a rosewood plane knob. And the wood's surface hardness has nothing to do with the oil you wipe on (an off) periodically, that surface hardness, that deepness of color - that's rosewood, it has nothing to do with any external oil application that roesewood immediately sheds. But open a cabinet that's been finished with linseed oil, and refinished, and refinished. Phewww!Now if you would like to duplicate the appearance of (fleeting and fragile, non-protective) low, gentle luster of a freshly oiled wood surface, and if you would like to have that protective surface last for the ages, with a finish that never has to be "refreshed," unless someone harms it, I can tell you how to accomplish that with lacquer, or shellac or, yes, even varnish.But I think you would rather flaunt your ignorance.Rich
Wow, Rich, you really put me in my place. I feel so foolish for "flaunting my ignorance." I'm so ashamed. Why was I trusting my actual experience over most of two decades - my silly eyes that see oil adding depth -- my silly nose that smells nothing rancid -- and my silly hands that feel nothing gummy -- instead of just bowing down to your learned pronouncements?
Look, blowhard, go back and read what I wrote before calling me ignorant again. I said I do not use the stuff for a final finish (though I do use it from time to time as the first step under shellac or the like). I said I use on tool handles and my bench. The part of your rant I was disagreeing with was the nonsense about it getting rancid or gummy after many years or reapplications or whatever the hell it was you were spouting.
Tearing down strawmen and calling people ignorant just makes you look foolish. But hey, take a deep breathe and enjoy your self-proclaimed superiority, Rich. Enjoy that stench -- like I'm sure you enjoy the smell of your own farts.
Rich certainly knows more than anybody else, doesn't he?
Your comment about Moser - that we don't know what he is doing is untrue. His manufacturing operation is open for tours. I toured his plant, talked to the actual finishers doing the work and looked at the raw materials and the drums they came in. I've also visited some of their retail shops to see how the furniture is displayed and how sales people present it.
But I wasn't satisfied with that - I also toured Green Design by Doug Green, an operation similar to Thos Moser in Maine - all solid cherry furniture. And Doug Green uses blo followed with a catalized varnish for the final coat. He does this in part because he ships his furniture partially assembled - the customer does the final assembly utilizing sliding dovetail construction.
While there is a lot of creditable info imparted on this site, I prefer to go visit folks who are actually doing it. If someone touts a tool as a fantastic machine, I find some folks whose living depends on that machine to see how they feel about it. And I visit the folks who repair them for frequency of repair and repairability. Likewise with finishing, everyone has their own ways and can be successful with their particular method, so putting down a particular method can raise a lot of hackles. Folks use their finishing systems for many purposes with good results, so I'm always interested in hearing positive discussions.
You make excellent points about blo and that's why it is used only in certain applications. I have a very high end client who needed a long, narrow kitchen table that didn't look like a "mall purchase" - she wanted solid cherry. And she likes the rustic, worn look that a kitchen table can take on but she wanted the surface to be repairable. So poly and lacquer were out as well as varnish (it has heavy metal salts for driers which she didn't want). So Tried & True - blo and beeswax - was an obvious solution. Five years later - I recently visited her - and my client has a beautiful looking cherry table. Oh there are some minor scratches and dents from the children but she simply puts a tiny amount of T&T on the top and buffs it for a few minutes - and it looks great again. And her friends want to know how she avoided the "mall look" with a new piece of furniture. Knowing the finish, where to use it and how to properly apply it are all important factor to ensure success with any finishing system.
Edited 10/26/2006 8:37 am ET by ETG
<<But I think you would rather flaunt your ignorance.>>
Ouch!
Not me! From this day forward, no more BLO!
I will let the poly-urine-thane flow!
Or is it poly-ethy-urine?
I just don't know!
David C.
Sorry guys, but I think you have misunderstood Rich.
I think he is referring to the older kind of BLO - Bovine Lactate Oil-
Man does that stuff get rancid!
I would never use it.
Edited 10/27/2006 4:51 pm ET by PCWoodworks
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