Please could someone tell me the benefits of Boiled Linseed oil. I am currently fitting out a new workshop & am looking to treat the wood with a preservative. What are the benefits of the oil other it's nice smell
Thanks
Colin.
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If you apply it correctly it hardens well, giving a good surface against damp and water, but still lets air through, (it breathes, like Gore-tex) so the wood dries underneath the oil.
It is cheap (relatively), takes pigment very well, so you can make your own paint from it (by adding pigment and some thinner).
BUT: Do not put it on thick, then it never gets hard, and you have a sticky surface for ever.
BjarteR
Not the linseed I've used. Doesn't "harden," but remains soft in the film. Probably why it's used in paints - flexible. Oilcloth and linoleum are a couple of examples of flexibility. Water and oil find seperate ways into wood. You need a full surface finish to get good water rejection.
To harden the film, resin is added. Simple "natural" stuff or plastic like urethane. Also contributes to the build on the surface, which helps reject water. Even with siccatives to help it cure added, you don't want to put on a thick coat of BLO, where the top skins, and the bottom remains semi-solid.
What wood do you want to preserve - that is not clear to me here. The framing of the workshop? The bench? Your stock of lumber?
Boiled oil as a treatment is foodsafe. Salad bowls, other wooden food implements, chopping boards and benchtops (I prefer to use olive oil there)... It will somewhat protect many timbers from waterstain (but not all of them, and only partially). It darkens wood, typically, and can add a 'glow'. Again, this depends on the timber. If I use boiled oil on eucalyptus pilularis I am wasting my time. Water goes straight through, I get black waterstain within minutes ... on cypressus macrocarpa o.t.o.h. the water will sit on top of the boiled oil finish for half an hour without leaving a mark (and it gives the timber a nice sheen). All this is why you usually try out samples of finish on scraps before putting any on a completed new piece: different finishes react differently with various timbers. As a protection against borer beetle or fungal rot boiled oil is a non event. Get something else.
h.t.h. -P.
Linseed yellows with age, is hard to apply and doesn't give a hard-wearing surface. For general workshop use you're probably better with a commercial Danish oil (like Liberon's), a long oil varnish mix. For better work with oil finishes then use a commercial blended finishing oil based on Tung oil.
For outdoor garden furniture, go with a commercial product with UV sunlight resistance. I like the Australian Organoil range from Axminster.
As always, don't apply oil too thickly or it will dry tacky and be a problem to fix. In this weather just re-coat quickly with thin coats instead - won't take long at all.
What against ? Oils have minimal protective qualities and no preservative quality. If you want to protect the surface, go for the oil+varnish mixes. If you want a minimally invasive finish, then use a blended finishing oil (maybe with Danish oil over it), but don't expect a pure oil finish to form an impervious skin over the timber.
You shouldn't need a preservative in a workshop, just fix the source of damp or bugs instead. But if you do, maybe on timbers from a leaky roof, then look at the commercial mixes of Fungal Death Brew.
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