Re: Formula for teak oil

Dec 19, 2018 Last reply: 7 years ago 10 Replies

Back in my High School days about 1973 my woodwork teacher told us about overpriced Teak Oil and gave us his recipe which worked well. I think I've also made it with PolyUrethane instead of Varnish though the project escapes me at the moment.


1/3 Boiled Linseed Oil
1/3 Varnish
1/3 Thinner

The problem I have now is in Southern Mexico I can not find Linseed Oil of any type. Nor Tung Oil. The only items I've found are coloring stains and Varnishes and Thinners. Also liquid poisons to treat against termites which are common and reason for Concrete houses and steel door frames.



Varnishes also seem to repel the termites



Tuesday, March 21, 2000 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-6, Alec Fry wrote:



Something I use quite a lot - and which always seems exorbitantly
> expensive - is teak oil. I've often wondered if it's possible to make my
> own, but I have never managed to discover the formula.
>
> Recently I tried a mixture of 50% linseed oil and 50% white spirit which
> seemed to work quite well. Does anyone know the "proper" formula, please - I
> imagine there must be some sort of preservative or fungicide added. >
> Alec

Victorian paints worked well because the pigments were often deadly poisons. They used turpentine and linseed oil. Pigments were things like oxides of lead, mercury, cyanide and arsenic.

In South America, they soak timber in diesel oil to protect against termite. Dunno how effective it is or how long it lasts.

Wow...

This has to be the record for oldest message dragged out of the archives and responded to! Your answer is almost 19 years late! I wonder if Alec is still looking for an answer?

And it's not even a HomeownersHub resp> Back in my High School days about 1973 my woodwork teacher told us about overpriced Teak Oil and gave us his recipe which worked well. I think I've also made it with PolyUrethane instead of Varnish though the project escapes me at the moment.

¡Hola de Argentina! Well, not right now but I spend a lot of time in Buenos Aires and find similar problems to you when I'm there. Where abouts are you in Southern Mexico? A few years ago I caught a bus in Ottawa, Canada and didn't stop catching buses until I reached Buenos Aires, Argentina (we'll skip over Darien - I did) and spent a few very pleasant days in the Southern Mexico border town of Tapachula.

It would be useful to have an idea of what sort of products you are working with - for reasons of scale and practicality. In the mean time, have you exhausted all possibilities on mercadolibre? Amazon USA ship to Mexico and have a wide range of finishing materials available though frankly, if getting goods delivered into Mexico from abroad is only half as expensive and half as complicated as it is in Argentina then it's a bloomin' nightmare.

If you can tell me more about your projects I'll see if I can come up with some ideas.

Nick

Yes. Rags left on melamine-coated chipboard outside, used to wipe up excess linseed oil and a mix of linseed oil/white spirits.

Nothing left but a large black burnt spot one day later. Sun and a it being a warm day probably contributed; it was maybe a double fistful of rags.

Soak them in water, burn them, seal them in a tin, but don't chuck them in the workshop corner with the sawdust and planer chips, under the shelf with the lacquer thinner.

Thomas Prufer

I haven't been to Mexico but would imagine that gun stock oil would be available (but maybe I watched too many westerns as a kid). Something like Tru-oil gives an excellent finish.

Waste engine oil and creosote not uncommon.

Never saw the reply must be in my kill file. Brian

Cotton is safer. Marginally:-(

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