On the trail of an oil finish

I use almond oil to move my bees out of the suppers when I harvest honey but have not tried it on wood.

On Sun, 8 Mar 2009 16:51:10 -0500, John wrote (in message ):

what makes an oil work as a finish is its ability to polymerize. linseed oil does this and so do tung oil and walnut oil. I do not know if almond oil will polymerize. Some food-type oils do not polymerize, they just oxidize (go rancid and sticky) for example olive oil and canola oil and butter and corn oil.

It might be possible to do some research with google and get an answer.

tom koehler

In message , tom koehler writes

Hi Tom

Thanks for the reply, I did a search and came up with this page, which has some interesting insights into oils.

"Cyanoacrylate (CA, superglue) will polymerize linseed oil (and several other oils that are normally not considered "drying" oils, so you can make almond oil laquer with it!)."

I have seen and tried BLO with CA as a pen finish, and was quite impressed, My own attempts though, show I do need a little more practice with the technique :)

Maybe next time I will try almond oil

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Hmmmm. But linseed oil IS a "drying" oil, so the expertise of the author of the above statement is suspect.

In message , Larry Blanchard writes

I think the author covers that with these statements

Most nut oils, including raw linseed oil are very slow drying (if they dry at all)

Boiled linseed oil is raw linseed oil with some chemicals added. These chemicals are called "dryers" or "polymerizers." What they do is let the small hydrocarbon molecules in the oil join together to form long chain molecules, called "polymers," which are essentially plastics or lacquers. (Don't worry, good woods are largely lignin, another natural polymer "plastic"). Any oils that turn into natural lacquer are called "drying oils" or "self polymerizing oils" or sometimes "boiled" oils.

In message , Ted writes

The Butchers block article is very interesting, though I do hope them mark their meat as "May Contain Nuts" :)

So much of finishing is lore and opinion that I hate to join the fray. But since the author you quoted seems to be concerned about safety, he should have mentioned that those "some chemicals" are toxic heavy metals.

I don't want to sound like an ad, but Tried&True has some finishes that are non-toxic even when wet. Including an oil/varnish mix and a polymerized linseed oil. No, I have no interest in the company other than as a user of the products.