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Speaking of seed oils,

This liquid in the front is 6 years old. It started as flax seed oil, and was mixed with diatomaceous earth in 2018. It was turned every month or so, until the diatomaceous earth separated and hardened on the bottom. The clarified liquid was stored in a loosely covered glass container for several years, slowly thickening.

Now it’s the consistency of honey, and when you spread it on wood, it hardens into a naturally occurring polymer in 24 hours. Old school methods, no chemicals or plastics.

👍

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Discussion

The Bird 1y ago

where did you learn about that I would love to learn more old school methods like this

atyh 1y ago

I just started googling, and followed rabbit holes. I found all kinds of things about old school paint, wood treatments, and making things water resistant. There is alot of stuff on YouTube too.

The Bird 1y ago

That's really cool

Squeaky Frog 1y ago

This is an interesting old-school (19th century) book with lots of info on how they finished wood back in the day. A couple of caveats: some ingredients may be uncommon and hard to locate today (or go by different names now), and some of this may not meet modern ideas about safety. But it's an interesting book about techniques that have gone by the wayside in favor of polyurethane sprayed on particleboard...

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17935

The Bird 1y ago

Cool I look forward to this

John James 1y ago

That’s cool!!!

FiddleHodlHomestead 1y ago

whoa! very cool. Thanks for sharing

Ceallach 1y ago

What is this final product called? Is it sold anywhere if one doesn't have 5 years to wait?

to be decided 1y ago

So, this probably results in a significantly more weather/water resistant finish compared to just painting wood in unprocessed lin seed oil a few times, right?

Just wondering _how much_ more durable it is to justify the effort.

I recently painted my wooded bike luggage carrier with flax seed oil .. going to find out how resistant to rain that made it. Smells nice at least :-)

Before that, I had smeared vaseline on it some time ago, just because that was the only thing I had on my hands on the occasion. It wore off surprisingly fast from a few dozen times getting heavy rains, considering that stuff is totally water insoluable.

atyh 1y ago

I like that you just used Vaseline. Trying things is the way.

Both flax seed oil, and Tung oil are fairly quick to dry, and produce a nice finish. I prefer Tung oil personally. The finish is an orange-brown, where flax seed oil(linseed) is more yellow.

If you want a finish with a bit more water resistance, add bees wax.

Here is a pretty good article on it…

https://blog.lostartpress.com/2021/07/12/cook-your-own-linseed-oil-wax-finish/