A friend gave me this recipe for home-made oil finish for rustic furniture.
2 parts Linseed Oil 1 part Mineral Turpentine 1 part vinegarMy question is which vinegar ? The dark brown or white. Does it matter? Can I try both to see which looks best?
I will be using on white pine and gum tree.
Thanks, Tana
This recipe is a variant of the well-known "salad dressing" furniture treatment. It's intended for cleaning or restoring the finish on existing pieces, not for finishing new timber from scratch.
It's not a good finish for new work and I wouldn't use it. It's basically raw linseed oil, which you could use just as well on its own.
Linseed oil has uses for "rustic" work like these
As a furniture restorer, then this mixture is effective but a little crude. Don't go slathering it around on fine work - it doesn't do much, and what it does do tends to involve leaving linseed behind to go yellow afterwards. It also builds up after many uses (I think the Winterthur collection had a problem with this) into a thick "peanut butter" that's hard to remove.
Plainest, simplest unflavoured spirit vinegar you can find. Good for cleaning glass too.
Almost certainly it will not.
Of course. Let us know what you find.
Vinegar???? How are you going to keep it mixed, by adding lecithin?
Sure that wasn't supposed to be _varnish_?
A common formula for homemade wiping varnish is equal parts, by volume, of oil, thinner, and oil-based varnish.
Others prefer a higher proportion of solids, up to a 1-2-3 ratio, one part oil, two parts solvent, three parts varnish.
Don't substitute water-based 'varnish'.
Basicly these mixes are thinned long-oil varnishes, probably not much different from thinning spar varnish.
Snip
I have heard that the production finish for rustic furniture is used motor oil and or diesel fuel.
diesel fuel is translucent. I have a diesel generator in a wooden enclosure, and there is a "diesel fuel finish" on the bottom. It looks waxy and translucent.
I myself wanted to use motor oil for wood finish (on some outdoor pieces), but never got to actually doing that...
i
I suspect that either would not be good for human contact.
Not real satisfactory for many reasons, the most significant of which is the fact it will take "forever" to fully dry (if it ever does) and tends to collect dirt.
I agree. That would be for pieces that are a base of something, some rough outdoor stuff.
i
but never got to actually doing that...
Thanks... Live and learn!
i
my guess is that it doesn't matter.. a friend that does butcher block uses about the same thing, but with lemon oil instead of the vinegar... I think that would be my choice, also..
Personally, my skill level doesn't include making my own finishes... there are so many proven commercial ones out there that I'd rather spend my time developing other skills.. YMMV
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
FWIW, you can easily take commercial finishes and adjust them to suit your own needs. Probably the simplest and my favorite is to take spar varnish and thin it with equal parts turpentine and BLO. It makes a great wiping varnish that is easier to use (and easier to control the level of buildup) than the stuff straight out of the can.
You can also play around with substituting tung oil for BLO, and by adjusting the levels of solvent vs. varnish vs. oil, you can achieve different results.
With any finish, experiment on scrap first or you *will* be experimenting on the real thing (tmPaullyRad).
Chuck Vance (BTDT, got the t-shirt)
Used oil adds that yummy color-me-Redneck aroma, don't it?
- Inside every older person is a younger person wondering WTF happened. ---
Yeah, I always looked at as CRAP furniture sold in upper end furniture stores so that they could offer the unknowing something to buy.
How do you know that? It sounds like there is a story here. C'mon, fess up.
Steve
My sister and brother-in-law use transmission oil once a year on the teak trim on their boat. It still lokks good after 18 years.
Dave Hall
Do NOT use this mixture for anything!
As someone else already pointed out, it is not a finish but is sometimes still used by unfortunates as a cleaner / reviver. It will leave the infamous "Hershey Finish" on your furniture as it slowly reacts with light to leave a chocolate brown goo which is very difficult to remove. Winterthur had a real problem sometime ago since the mixture used to be thought of as an excellent cleaner / reviver for antiques. One of the chief restorers at the Smithsonian had to come up and spend weeks teaching people how to safely remove it.
The vinegar provides an acidic environment for the linseed oil to create the polymers when exposed to light.
If you want an oil finish, I suggest a commercially available mixture of oil, varnish, and thinner like Watco or Minwax Antique Oil Finish. The small amount of varnish will provide at least a little protection for the wood.
Good Luck.
G'day all, The farm house in which I lived as a kid, was constructed from clad with Jarrah (Rough Sawn) boards up to about 5 feet high with the top portion being asbestos sheeting................. Every year we used to get an old mop and give the boards a good coating of sump oil.(Which the old man would save from the oil changes in the cars, tractors and other machinery). I'd reckon that them boards would still be as good as new, although very black. Would get a nasty stain on your trousers, I assume, if it was used for furniture. Regards John
John B wrote in news:1PUKe.81460$ snipped-for-privacy@news-server.bigpond.net.au:
John, just the thought of the reaction on the face of one of our California inspectors, on seeing that house, made my morning!
I bet the paint was made with lead, too. Funny how we try to keep everyone safe. Farm life in Oz certainly has different risks than city life in California...
Thanks for posting.
Patriarch
In some old WW books (of UK origin) that formula, or some variation of it, was *always* a cleaner, or reviver. I tried it, and was not very impressed. It did not work well, you have to keep shaking it continuously to keep it mixed, and it stinks! VM&P Naptha works better.
Your friend may be confused with the following mix, which will make a good oil/varnish wiping mix:
Equal parts BLO, spar varnish and turpentine.
You can fiddle with the proportions any way you like, to get the finish desired. Some folk say use the best possible spar varnish, while others claim the cheapest possible stuff works fine. I have only used the cheaper polyurethanes and they give a good finish. Don't use too much BLO, otherwise it can take days to dry out.
I have also experimented with adding dyes and artist's colors to this mix, to get a "wiping varnish with color" It works well, but be prepared to spent a lot of time messing about if you are fussy on the precise color. The big advantage is that you can match the stain to another piece of furniture.
Practice on some off-cuts to get the wiping techniques correct, and to ensure the end color is what's desired. It can vary a lot, even on the same species of wood.
Barry Lennox.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.