Danish Oil

Danish oil is pretty much a thin varnish. Your solids are starting to cure. It will be a bit problematic in use, as the cure is not reversible. Problems with curing in the oil may not make it worth your while to save it.

Mix well, rub into a piece of scrap. Discard if you have chunks or if it stays tacky.

Danish oil can be anything... Just like tung oil. Unless it has "ingredients" listed on the lable you have no idea what you're getting. In fact, it often IS tong oil mixed with thinner. I just use tong oil so at least I know what's in the bottle. I saw a chart once that showed that 90% of the "tung oil" sold in stores contained no tung oil what-so-ever. That's when I started buying the pure stuff.

My guess is, your danish oil is at least part tung oil and there's air in the bottle. The air causes the tung oil to thicken up. Add a little thinner and then squeeze the air out of the bottle before you close the lid. If it isn't a squeezible bottle, you can add marbles to take up the extra air space. Or move it to a smaller container.

Ken, It's cheap, chuck it out and get some fresh. I tried to 'fix' some old poly. Naaa...not worth the effort!

Cheers, Tom

Ken, this has been discussed before, but I don't remember the archived subject line. All about cross linking, polymerization and other voodoo stuff. No matter, the conclusions were the same as the good advice you got here. Get some fresh oil. Arch

Fortiter,

Lol, "Cheap" is a relative term. I'm poor... and there isn't a damned thing about woodworking that I find cheap at all! lol Pouring a cap full of thinner (if he already has some) in the bottle and giving it a stir wont cost a dime... I've used some strange things as finish when I was broke in my time... Leftover Virgin Olive Oil actually works pretty nifty! Smells good to! I've heard of people using motor oil, but I don't think that'd smell so hot.

Motor oil's great, because it contains detergent, too....

It does? Well, wouldn't that act as a stablizer? oooo......

"George" skrev i melding news:40f9239d$1 snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net...

Someone gave me this rule of thumb: Mineral oils do not cure. Vegetable oils cure.

When I was a boy, boatbuilders used to saturate the wood with the diesel oil or the counterpart that was used in 40-es and 50-es boat engines, then sealing it in the wood with something vegetable, like linseed oil.

This was a far less expensive way than the old method with wooden tar.

Because the mineral oil did not cure and therefore got "washed out" of the wood, and the vegetable oil "sealant" was worn off, the process would have to be repeated regularly if the boat was to last more than a couple of decades.

Kitchen blocks for cutting meat are treated with vaseline oil (mineral) and has to be refreshed regularly.

Bjarte

Not the best rule I've heard. Lots of vegetable oils need a lot of help to cure, and mineral products like asphalt and creosote have demonstrable longevity in their uncured state.

None the less, it was intended as a joke, as you know.

Here's a question, though - what is "synthetic" motor oil? Is it still hydrocarbons in a different formulation, or are the additives overtaking the base?

Walnut and unsaturated vegetable oils are semi-curing.

Linseed & Tung Oil are curing / soft hardening.

- Andrew

Synthetic lubes (there are lots of others besides motor oils) are mixtures of organic chemicals. The base fluids are usually either poly alpha olefins (PAO) which are hydrocarbons or esters or polyalkylene glycols (both of which contain oxygen as well as carbon and hydrogen). Additive content of synthetics will generally be about the same quantity as for corresponing distillate based products so the additives are not "overtaking the base". Hope this is useful. Feel free to email me if you want more information

Kip Powers Rogers, AR (retired oil co. development chemist)

Thanks. I didn't think there was much to gain by hydrogenating carbon in some big steam cooker. Just a selection of fractions and additives, with a jazzy name.

I think we can all agree that Linseed oil SUCKS. My dad used it all the time... I didn't know no better until I found tung oil. Then I was like "Wow... I never have to re-apply? Why the hell have I been using Linseed oil?!?!?" Now I have my father sworn on tung oil.

I like those beeswax/carbana wax mixtures for turning as well. They smell like cookies... mmmm

No. I won't agree with that at all. Be careful about making sweaping statements or assuming to talk for everyone. I'm assuming that you meant BOILED Linseed Oil and not the pure Linseed Oil. Either way, I use them both for various purposes regularly. They have certain properties that are desirable given different circumstances just like the Pure Tung Oil and any other finish.

A common problem many people have is that they use the wrong finish for whatever they're doing. Or they'll have a favorite finish and just stick to that without regard to what's actually needed in a given situation. A search of this groups' archives at Google Groups will show what I've said about it in the past.

- Andrew

I know many will disagree, but I think that we can all agree that the beauty of rcw is that we all can agree on nothing and we disagree especially re oil finishes. Agree?

At one time I thought about adding linseed oil to lab. stains since it was an ingredient in printer's ink. I learned that the thin surface film produced by oxidized linseed oil, remember your axe handles and your linoleum (linoil) kitchen floor, is soft, elastic and not very abrasion or UV resistant. Depending on its intended use, linseed oils (and linens) vary according to where the flax is grown, how clean the harvesting and processing and how much cottonseed oil etc. is added. Like any other vegetable oil it promotes mildew. Adding arsenic, chromium, nickel and other friendly chemicals. might prevent mildew and help dry the oil if they don't dry _us up first.

Linseed oil, in the quantities we use, isn't much cheaper than the newer (we all agree, better, don't we? ) finishing oils. Slow drying should produce better levelling which may count for something in house paint and furniture, but does it affect the objects we turn?

I think that we can all disagree that _tradition as much as its qualities drives our continued use of linseed oil. Many of us remember Dad oiling his shotgun's walnut stock, Brother softening his catcher's mitt, Mom putting that d... flaxseed poultice on our innocent flesh and admiring Sister's linen party dress.

To correct the slight outside chance (sure!) that everything I've said is garbage, the good stuff is already in the archives. For the lazy, maybe Russ, Kip, Andrew, George Pain and other turners with real knowledge, who I haven't driven to total lurking yet, will straighten us out one more time. PLEASE! Arch

Fortiter,

Yes, I was referring to "boiled" linseed oil. In fact, I didn't even know there was a "non-boiled" kind. When I used to use it, I made most things outa oak. Now I use a lot of maple and walnut.

I dunno man, every "woodworking Faq" I read says not to use Linseed oil at all because most modern products are far superior... and I tend to agree. But I suppose FAQs can be wrong.

Please take this in the, hopefully, helpful tone in which I'm writing it...

Do a web search on Boiled Linseed Oil and you'll get tons of links on how it's produced and how the boiled versus non-boiled varieties differ. The Boiled Linseed Oil (you'll often see it shortened to just BLO) is vastly more used in wood finishing (either alone or as an ingredient in other finishes) but the raw linseed oil is still used too although much more in other areas such as on metals and as ingredients in other finishes, paints, varnishes, inks, etc.

Were you saying that you stopped using Boiled Linseed Oil because you don't use as much Oak? If so, then why is that?

A FAQ is just that ... just frequently asked questions. It's all just opinion just like everything else (including this group, my own articles, and the books related to this topic). Just because it's in a FAQ, doesn't mean much. There's FAQ's about the Hollow Earth theory too. Doesn't mean that it's based in reality.

"says not to use Linseed oil at all because most modern products are far superior"

And what products would that be? Careful, now. This could turn out to be a trick question. Many commercial finishes use BLO as a main ingredient (whether it's actually listed or not as it turns out) so you are still, likely, using BLO. It's not as often these days that just BLO, alone and by itself, is used as a wood finish but it's still a very valid one in certain situations. Same goes with Pure Tung Oil or any other ingredient. Many of them you can combine to get the good properties of each in one mixture and BLO happens to be a very very common ingredient these days. In years past, it was used alone mainly because that's all they had to fill that particular need. Same thing with Pure Tung Oil (yes, everybody say it with me now ... "or any other ingredient" ). That's fine and they still can be.

I encourage you to do a search of the archives of this group at Google Groups on this topic. You'll get many opinions and they are all just as valid as mine and yours. The best thing to do is to be informed and try these things for yourself. You said that you found the other modern finishes to be far superior. That's fine and I can respect that (and agree given much more specific situations). I'm just wondering what those products are and if you really know what's in there. Saying that BLO is bad (or "SUCKS") just isn't enough for me.

- Andrew

I imagine if you re-read those FAQs you'll find that it is about using BLO as a finish, as in alone, complete and entire. In that circumstance, the stuff gives minimal defense against moisture, next to none against abrasion, and will embed dirt and grit in the soft film. Soft, that is, unless it's being used to support torn fibers for sanding.

Normal use for linseed, soy or tung oil is as a vehicle for other materials, like various resins, which toughen the film and give it resistance to the wear and tear items above. Modern resins like urethane, phenolics and alkyd are probably superior to the other gums and resins used in the past to make varnish or its thinner cousin "Danish Oil," the original subject of this thread. Siccatives, or "dryers" are added to promote film-building reducing wet times to non-glacial frames.

Other finishes such as lacquer, shellac, and polyester resins use no oil as a vehicle and other solvents.

Nope... I was just explaining that my experience with linseed oil is limited to oak. If linseed oil worked better on a different kind of wood, I wouldn't notice. Prior to "Woodcraft" coming into town Oak and pine were all I could get. I don't buy my wood at woodcraft, but they have forced all the lumber yards around here to start carrying more variety. They are expensive but just the fact that they exist has really improved the woodworking atmosphere around here.

I don't know... the exact quote was "modern finishes" and I'm not saying I'm basing my beliefe on just reading this FAQ. I'm saying that I used BLO as a finish (by itself) for years and was not happy. Then I read some FAQs and realized it wasn't just me, or how I was using it. Prior to a few years ago, there was no other finishes availible to me.Woodcraft came to my area and now I can get just about anything I want. I don't like polyurathane and other hard finishes so I've sworn off of them. That leaves me with oils and waxes. I like pure Tung oil (mixed with thinner obviously) Bees wax and carbana wax. They aren't highly durable... but the things I make, I make to look at usually. Except my coffee table... but the tung oil on that is holding up well after all these years.

I still say that BLO, by itself, as a stand alone finish, it's a very good finish. In fact, I'd rather use olive oil or something. It'd at least nt turn to Goo after a few months or years. As far as it being good for oiling baseball gloves and whatnot... I'd have no idea.