• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Was Sam Maloof finish - now added Mike's Magic Mix

I see that we already have a sticky for Sam Maloof courtesy of Phil !
 
I always remember someone commenting on the old Ronseal ad. in Viz - it says it does what it says on the tin, but nowhere on the tin does it say it'll make your front door look as if an African elephant wiped its arrse on it.
 
Ok....... So I have

Tin of nice polyurethane varnish (can't remember the last time I used varnish)
Plenty of white spirit
An unused can of Osmo, but I don't want to open it, so what else could I use as a substitute preferably cheap (cos I am).
 
Lurker":1mfdtw11 said:
Ok....... So I have

Tin of nice polyurethane varnish (can't remember the last time I used varnish)
Plenty of white spirit
An unused can of Osmo, but I don't want to open it, so what else could I use as a substitute preferably cheap (cos I am).
Click to expand...

I use 2 parts PU to 1 part white spirit and no "oils"

Bob
 
Lurker":285f1ua6 said:
An unused can of Osmo, but I don't want to open it, so what else could I use as a substitute preferably cheap (cos I am).
Click to expand...
Boiled linseed or tung oil (see the sticky on the 'Finishing' page) Engine oil probably wouldn't work :lol: - Rob
 
What oil have you got, Jim? Linseed would be fine. Same with Tung, Danish & Finishing oil. Rapeseed would probably work, but I'll let you do the experiment. Same with vaseline*.

* I'm only half joking. I reckon either of them would have a chance, particularly if turning where finishes get dried and polished very quickly because of the RPMs. I'll do an experiment when I remember.
 
I have most of the above.
Will try blo.

Just to open another can of worms,
What’s the difference between blo and plain linseed oil?
Just some driers IIRC.
I have 3 litres of plain lo which I bought from a horsey shop where I got my liquid paraffin.
 
Tung oil can be bough natural or polymerised - natural takes an age to dry, so if buying it purposely it might be wise in this weather to buy polymerised.
 
The technique he suggests is similar to the one I have been outlining, but he doesn't allow so long between coats. Maybe he lives somewhere much warmer than us. The difference, though, is in the mix. He is describing a thinned varnish only, with no oil in it. We all know that Americans like a glossier finish than we do, generally. We also all know that oils on their own take a long time to dry and are never protective...but they make the grain stand out nicely. I think the oil/ varnish/ white spirit mix gives the best of all worlds, with a semi-gloss finish, good grain highlighting, and a robust hard-wearing surface. As he says, though, this technique, whilst bomb-proof and easy, does take a while to build up sufficient thickness.
 
I bought some white spirit and tung oil yesterday so will have a go at a mix later assuming this impending storm doesn't knock the power out.
 
It took a while to find this old thread. I thought I knew everything about the 1:1:1 varnish: white spirit: oil technique, having used it for years and years now. However, these last few hot days I have learnt something new about it. I have been applying a coat first thing in the morning, and then putting the piece out in the sun to dry. Don't.....

I have been finding small blisters/ bubbles forming in the dried finish. I'm sure there are a number of reasons why this could happen, but it doesn't much matter. It's dried too quick, and a few imperfections have resulted. It's no great problem, as they sand out with a gentle de-nibbing, but it probably means I'll use 5 coats instead of 4. So, keep your work out of the direct sun.
 
Thanks for finding it Mike. Something for me to go back to the beginning of to (re)educate myself about with finishes.
 
Interesting. I have just done some osmo oiling outside. So far no sign of a problem.
I would suspect the linseed oil is the culprit. Do you use boiled or raw?
 
PAC1 said:
Interesting. I have just done some osmo oiling outside. So far no sign of a problem.
I would suspect the linseed oil is the culprit. Do you use boiled or raw?
Click to expand...
My oil this time was Finishing Oil. For a while now I've been using up some old Osmo PolyX. Last time I used linseed in this mix was a few years ago, and the first coat or two took longer than 24 hours to dry, which can be a pain.

I have no idea, of course, but my suspicion is that the varnish might have been drying faster than the white spirit was evaporating, and trapping mini-bubbles of the evaporating solvent.
 
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