The stuff takes 24 to 48 to dry. And we let the panel sit around for a full week to really harden. The colors are gorgeous, and the paint covers bare wood in one thin coat. So a little paint goes a long way.
Now I am experimenting with how to finish the finish. The painted surface is a bit rustic. It’s a little rough in texture. And with the green and red colors, there are areas that are shinier than others. The blue is more consistent in sheen.
After messing around with several abrasives, I settled on fine sanding sponge (#220) that has a firm backing. The paint takes a surprising amount of abuse, so cutting through the color isn’t a huge risk like it is with latex or acrylic paint.
After sanding the panels smooth, I followed with a very light coat of boiled linseed oil. I wiped it on with a rag and wiped it clean with a second rag. This is the best result so far. The surface is smooth, consistent and a bit luminous. Though it doesn’t look plastic at all.
If I come up with a better method, I’ll share it here.
— Christopher Schwarz
The paint before rubbing it out. The reflected light makes it look worse than it really does.
After rubbing out. Again, the reflected light makes the surface look more textured that it actually appears.
Yes, I clamp my joints as I drive the drawbore pegs. I’m a chicken, OK?
On Friday, I knocked together a cupboard inspired by Romanian peasant furniture for my next book, “The American Peasant.” The piece was made entirely by hand, but using Western tools instead of Eastern European ones.
All the joints are drawbored and glued (with gelatin glue I made here in the shop). When I went to make the drawbore pegs, I decided to first look at what is in the Jennie Pipe in the machine room. Jennie Pipe? Read on.
After Jennie Alexander died, the family asked us to take any of the spare tools and bits of wood that other woodworkers didn’t want. I took a hacking knife and some scratch stocks. But somehow I also ended up with a piece of 6″ PVC pipe (sealed at one end) that is filled with Jennie’s dowel stock.
I usually split out my own drawbore pegs, but there was a 5/16”-diameter white oak dowel in the pipe that had grain that was as straight as if it were split. I thought: Why not?
I used the dowel and found that I had exactly enough to drawbore the 16 mortise-and-tenon joints, plus make the hinges for the doors, which rotate on dowels.
In the end, I had about 1/16″ extra, which is painted red. I took it as a sign that I had made the correct choice.
It’s funny how I can’t throw away some things (which is totally not like me). I still have my father’s stationery from his medical practice (printed in the 1980s) and his Rolodex. These things take up space I don’t have to spare, but I can’t part with them. Perhaps I’m destined to mail a letter to someone in the Rolodex.
I also have a sizable chunk of bright orange Plexiglas that Jennie used for making go/no-go gauges and other dingus (dingi?).
I can’t wait to see the cabinet I’m destined to build using that….
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. What’s The American Peasant? It’s my substack. It’s a somewhat foul-mouthed open wire of my progress on my next book. There’s practical information (how to sharpen and use a timber scribe) and “thoughts on craft” that would make David Pye roll his eyes – and then over in his grave. You can subscribe for free (about one-third of the posts are free). And there’s a trial subscription that lets you sample everything for free for seven days. I enjoy the heck out of writing it.
Linseed oil paint requires a lot of stirring at first. I used a stick. The Allbäck company recommends using a whisk.
For the last 20 years I’ve used mostly milk paints and acrylics on my furniture. I have reservations about both kinds of paint.
On milk paint, I find it inconsistent and a lot of work. When it works, it’s great. But it takes significant effort and time (for me) to get good results. And just because you know how to use red milk paint doesn’t mean you can use the same methods for black or blue.
That said, the paint has a lot going for it. It’s non-toxic. It is hard-wearing and looks better after a lot of wear. And it doesn’t create a plastic film over the wood like other paints do.
From the perspective of someone who sells furniture, however, I need to charge more for pieces that use milk paint because of all the extra time and steps involved.
Acrylics, on the other hand, are consistent and fast. I can spray a chair in the morning (about 45 minutes of work total) and have it sittable by the end of the day. The major downside is that it is a plastic finish. I’m not a fan of plastic – full stop. Nothing about plastic makes me happy. Acrylic wears fairly well, but it hasn’t been around for all that long (only since the 1930s). So the jury is still out on it (as it is on plastic glues such as polyvinyl acetate – aka yellow glue).
About seven years ago, we started working with the Canadian distributors for Allbäck, a Swedish finishing company that makes excellent linseed-oil-based finishes. The distributor also became our Canadian distributor for Lost Art Press for a time (we parted on amicable terms).
As we got to know one another, the Canadians sent us a bunch of their products for us to try. I became a huge fan of the Allbäck linseed oil wax. So much so that I sought to make our own variation on it for our shop (which we call Soft Wax 2.0).
They also sent us some of the Allbäck linseed oil paint. I’d made my own linseed oil paint before, and it’s a bit of a pain to get the pigment mixed into the oil. And then the paint takes a long while to dry. So I was a bit skeptical.
But I decided to give the Allbäck paint a try because everything else the company made was really good.
I painted it on our chopping block outside. The next day, the paint was still wet. Three days later, it was still wet. It took a full week for it to dry to the touch. At the time I remember saying: “I can’t wait a week for a single coat of paint to dry. I’ll starve.”
However, I was amazed by how good the paint looked, even after it was subject to our Midwestern climate with its extreme heat, humidity, snow and ice.
I set the stuff aside until I started work on “The American Peasant.” After much thought it became clear that linseed oil paint was the right paint for all these projects. It looked right. It was simple. It was low-VOC. Natural. I decided to give the paint a second go.
This time I read up on the paint a lot before using it. I experimented with adding a thin coat of oil on the wood the day before painting – this seemed to really help. And after applying the paint, I kept it in a room with low humidity. Plus I exposed it to lots of sunlight (a tip from Jögge Sundqvist).
The first paint sample basking in the February sun (and low humidity).
The coat of oil before painting made the paint go on very smoothly (like I was applying a second coat of paint). Controlling the drying conditions reduced the paint’s drying time to less than 24 hours.
And the linseed oil paint looked great with just one coat. You could still see the wood’s grain, the paint was fairly matte and there was no plastic feel.
My first finished paint sample. I love it.
I’m sold.
For the book, I’ve bought three colors of paint. (I could have bought all of them. The Allbäck colors look absolutely gorgeous to me.) Here they are: Old Blue, Holkham Green, and Old Red.
It’s a little more expensive. Allbäck is about $2 an ounce. (Quality acrylics are about $1.70 an ounce.)
But the quality of the Allbäck is outstanding. In fact, now that General Finishes is reducing its acrylic offerings, I’ve decided to try linseed oil paint on my chairs to see how much time it adds to my process. I suspect it won’t add much labor. But I will need to be patient and allow the paint to dry.
This year I am returning to hand-cut mortise-and-tenon joinery for my new book “The American Peasant” (I have a whole substack going about the book). All the parts for the projects in this book are processed, joined and finished by hand (using split stock when possible).
Why? Because now I can.
When I left Popular Woodworking in 2011, Lost Art Press (LAP) was just me and John. The company didn’t provide much income, so I built furniture on commission for eight years (I now only build on spec). That meant I needed to use machines to process stock, and the joinery was a mixed bag. Lots of hand-cut dovetails. But also lots of Domino joinery (after I got rid of my hollow-chisel mortiser).
Today Megan Fitzpatrick is the editor here at LAP, and I have a little breathing room. I still need to sell furniture to make ends meet, but I’m going to fill any extra time with work I enjoy.
These handles have seen a lot of beatings and remain strong.
The Ray Iles, which I have written about many times, are perfect things. Their oval handles allow you to orient the tool properly and steer the cut. The shape of the blade allows you to scrape the walls of the mortise without getting stuck. They are tough mothers. (My only quibble is the steel. The D2 really needs diamond media to sharpen it right. Good thing we have a couple diamond stones.)
You don’t really need to buy a whole set of the mortisers (I know Joel, who sells them, disagrees – wink). I do about 90 percent of my work with the 1/4″ and 5/16″.
Anyway, these chisels still have my highest recommendation. I’ve used a lot of other mortising chisels, and they pale in comparison to the Ray Iles.
What I like about the Blue Spruce mallet in particular is the resin-infused head. The resin makes it nearly indestructible. I also love its leather-covered face, which helps prevent dents in nearly finished work. I’ve had this mallet for at least 12 years and use it every day. In fact, today I decided to be nice to it, and I scraped 12 years of glue and grime off the handle.
And let me repeat myself once more: I paid full retail for all these tools. No one asked me to write this review. If they did ask, I would probably tell them to “get bent” and refuse to write anything. (That’s the kind of weirdo I am.)
A blue Albanese bear watches over the murder of his bag-mates.
One thing I love when Megan Fitzpatrick teaches in our storefront is that I am exiled from the bench room, and I need to amuse myself without woodworking tools or loud music.
So today I decided to experiment more with making gelatin-based glues. In December, I successfully made glue using gummy worms and bears. Then I made some nice liquid hide glue using unflavored gelatin.
I want to develop some recipes that readers can follow and replicate. So today was all about careful measurements, calculations and carrying the gazinta.
The gummy bears right before they are covered in water and melted.
Gummy Glue 2
When I made my first few batches, I threw some gummies in the glue pot and added water until the stuff looked like glue. That’s still a valid approach. But I wanted to see if I could create a recipe that was a little better thought out.
Gummy bears are basically gelatin and sugar, with some added colors, flavors and a little carnauba wax to keep them from sticking to each other in the package. Today I’m using a local brand of gummy, Albanese, which is made in Indiana. They are softer than your typical Haribo bear and smell a good deal more.
According to the packaging, the bears are about 44 percent sugar. That makes them about 56 percent other stuff – mostly gelatin. So a rough guess is that 100 grams of bears contain about 50 to 55 grams of gelatin. For simplicity, I’m saying that the bears are 50 percent gelatin.
So a typical hide glue recipe combines 75 grams of hide glue pearls and 3/4 cups (177ml) of water. So, I’m melting 150 grams of bears in 3/4 cups of water. (Useful fact, the Albanese bears are 5g each, so you can count out 30 bears instead of purchasing a drug-dealer scale that weighs in grams.)
I know some of you are concerned about the sugar (won’t bugs eat it?). I have been reading some academic papers that suggest that the sugar might actually make the glue stronger. But we will see.
The gummy glue is cooking now, and I hope to convince Megan’s students to use it on their sawbenches (or at least have a taste of it).
My first batch of gelatin glue (left). The second batch in progress (right). You can see some dry powdered gelatin at the bottom of the jar.
Death Grip Glue 2
When I made my first batch of gelatin glue, I measured out the gelatin using volume because the original recipe used volume. When I poured the water into the gelatin, the gelatin immediately soaked up all the water and left about 25 percent of the gelatin powder bone-dry. So I added more water (I don’t know how much).
When I cooked the glue, it came out watery. Too watery. It would run off joints like water. So I cooked it down until it was snot-like. Then it worked great.
My goal with this second batch of glue is to create a more reliable recipe. First I converted the hide glue recipe from volume to weight. Why? The gelatin is like fine sand. The hide glue pearls are like fine gravel. So there’s some air between the pearls.
When I weighed one cup of glue pearls, they equaled 150 grams. So I put 150 grams of gelatin in a clean glass jar and added 1-1/2 cups (355ml) of water.
Again, the gelatin soaked up all the water, leaving some dry stuff at the bottom. I decided to just leave it for now and see what it looks like tomorrow when I need to cook it.
