Lost Art Press

Cook Your Own Linseed Oil & Wax Finish

Posted on by Lost Art Press
A linseed oil and wax finish has a consistency like peanut butter and is easy to apply.

My daughter Katherine has been making a linseed oil and beeswax finish as fast as she possibly can for the last few weeks. And she has been selling out within minutes of posting the jars for sale. As always, I am happy to share any recipes I can so you can make this at home. It’s not difficult. This finish was developed with some advice from Jeff Stafford, a woodworker and finisher in Indianapolis. The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming “The Stick Chair Book,” which will be released this fall.

My favorite clear finish for chairs is a combination of linseed oil, beeswax and a little bit of citrus solvent. It is easy to apply, safe and is a lustrous finish that does not make a film barrier between you and the chair. It is easily renewed or repaired by adding more finish. This finish works for woods of all colors – from maple to walnut. It will add a yellow/orange cast to light-colored woods. So if you want a whiter finish, use soap instead.

You can buy a linseed oil and wax finish from many suppliers. Some of them are reasonably priced; others are extraordinarily expensive. I make my own because it’s easy and cheap, and because I am in control of the entire process.

I buy beeswax from Bulk Apothecary, which sells raw ingredients for people who make personal-care products. A pound of beeswax pellets costs anywhere from $5 to $10, depending on how much you order. A pound of beeswax pellets is about four cups by volume.

You can also get it from beekeepers, which is where I got mine for many years. The upside: it’s usually inexpensive or free. The downside: you need to refine it to get the insect parts out.

The second ingredient is raw linseed oil – not the commercial boiled linseed oil (BLO) at hardware stores. BLO has toxic metallic driers and is not what you want for this recipe. Raw linseed oil is also available from most hardware stores, but sometimes you have to ask them to order it for you. I pay about $10 for 32 ounces (four cups by volume).

People will tell you that raw linseed oil never dries. They are misinformed. Linseed is a drying oil. It takes some time for it to fully cure, but if you apply it correctly you can sit in your chair after a couple hours of applying this finish.

The third ingredient is just a bit of citrus solvent (limonene). The solvent loosens the mixture so it is more of a soft wax (like a lightweight peanut butter) and not a bar of soap. You can buy limonene from a variety of sellers and pay anywhere from $1 per ounce to $13 an ounce. I usually pay about $21 for 16 ounces (32 tablespoons). In total, a batch of this finish costs about $7 to $20 to make and will finish more than 10 chairs. 

Linseed Oil & Wax Finish Recipe

2 cups (16 ounces by volume) of raw linseed oil

3/4 cup beeswax

2 tablespoons limonene

I make this finish in a metal quart paint can from the hardware store. Place the metal can on a hotplate, fill the can with the raw linseed oil and turn on the hotplate to between low and medium. Monitor the temperature with a cooking thermometer. Beeswax melts at 151° (F). As soon as the temperature of the oil reaches 151°, pour the beeswax pellets and limonene into the oil. Stir with a stick until the beeswax melts (it takes less than a minute). Turn off the hotplate and remove the mixture from heat.

Allow it to cool. It will become a paste after about an hour of cooling. Seal. You can use it immediately or keep it indefinitely.

— Christopher Schwarz

More Non-toxic Soft Wax 2.0 in Stock

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Katherine spent the weekend making more non-toxic Soft Wax 2.0, and it is now for sale in her etsy store. 

Shown above is Kitty, the oldest of our five cats. And you can see, Kitty is out of craps to give. But she still loves Katherine and Lucy (I am tolerated).

This Soft Wax is my favorite finish for chairs, and I use it on a lot of other projects when I was a low-luster finish that doesn’t create a film between me and the wood.

And yes, this stuff is safe enough that you can use it on your beard. More instructions below!

Instructions for Soft Wax 2.0

Soft Wax 2.0 is a non-toxic finish for bare wood that is incredibly easy to apply and imparts a beautiful low luster to the wood.

The finish is made by cooking raw, organic linseed oil (from the flax plant) and combining it with cosmetics-grade beeswax and a small amount of a citrus-based solvent. The result is that this finish can be applied without special safety equipment, such as a respirator. The only safety caution is to dry the rags out flat you used to apply before throwing them away. (All linseed oil generates heat as it cures, and there is a small but real chance of the rags catching fire if they are bunched up while wet.)

Soft Wax 2.0 is an ideal finish for pieces that will be touched a lot, such as chairs, turned objects and spoons. The finish does not build a film, so the wood feels like wood – not plastic. Because of this, the wax does not provide a strong barrier against water or alcohol. If you use it on countertops or a kitchen table, you will need to touch it up every once in a while. Simply add a little more Soft Wax to a deteriorated finish and the repair is done – no stripping or additional chemicals needed.

Soft Wax 2.0 is not intended to be used over a film finish (such as lacquer, shellac or varnish). It is best used on bare wood. However, you can apply it over a porous finish, such as milk paint.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (VERY IMPORTANT): Applying Soft Wax 2.0 is so easy if you follow the simple instructions. On bare wood, apply a thin coat of soft wax using a rag, applicator pad, 3M gray pad or steel wool. Allow the finish to soak in about 15 minutes. Then, with a clean rag or towel, wipe the entire surface until it feels dry. Do not leave any excess finish on the surface. If you do leave some behind, the wood will get gummy and sticky.

The finish will be dry enough to use in a couple hours. After a couple weeks, the oil will be fully cured. After that, you can add a second coat (or not). A second coat will add more sheen and a little more protection to the wood.

Soft Wax 2.0 is made in small batches in Kentucky using a waterless process. Each glass jar contains 8 oz. of soft wax, enough for two chairs.

Chair Chat No. 17 with Rudy and Klaus: Kermit Sändwich™

Posted on by fitz

Editor’s note: Due to extensive work on “The Stick Chair Book,” it’s been a little while since we published a chair chat, today we are back with a Swedish chair assembled with Fish Glue and primitive IKEA joints. Salty language about pizza, electrocuted meatballs and potatoes will follow so be warned. For those who are easily offended, here is a video with a dog on a plane instead.

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Undesirable Conditions: A ‘Shop Tails’ Excerpt

Posted on by Kara Uhl
Alfie

A lot of what Nancy writes about in her forthcoming “Shop Tails” centers on conditions. The myriad conditions she lived in as a child and teen, from a traditional suburban two-parent home that went through some of the same cultural shifts as the world at large in the 1960s to an English boarding school to a small London flat. She writes about the conditions of her varied work environments, and the conditions agreed upon and sometimes imposed on by employers, employees and clients. She explores the conditions in which she found her human and non-human partners, and the way their actions and interactions helped and hindered, informing who she is today.

Film director Werner Herzog said, “I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.” It’s perhaps the not-so-hidden quest of “Shop Tails,” too, even if that wasn’t Nancy’s initial intention. Her essays within will make you laugh. They will make you angry. They will inspire you to create something beautiful (a piece of furniture, a garden, a better relationship, a home). They will break your heart. And they will stay with you.

On the lighter side of the human condition here’s an excerpt from Chapter 14, “Alfie and the Cat Whisperer (2012).” It begins with working conditions that are utterly undesirable all thanks to a sweet and small pale-grey tabby with an oddly pinched face. Enjoy!

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

Not long after I adopted Tom, the gray tabby kitten I brought home with Lizzie in 2004, he developed a terrible case of diarrhea that sent us to the vet. It turned out to be feline infectious peritonitis. I did my best to keep him hydrated and comfortable, hoping he’d recover, but his condition just got worse. I had him euthanized when we were finally past the point of hope, then buried him among the daffodils behind the shop. Fortunately, Lizzie had escaped contagion.

I wanted to adopt another male tabby. I returned to the shelter, where the cat room was again beyond capacity. To accommodate the overflow, the staff had put a couple of crates in the lobby at the front of the building, across from some monstrous rabbits, evidently bred to exceed the size of the largest Maine coon cat. Perhaps the idea behind this exercise in genetic engineering was to improve a rabbit’s self-defense options by making a single bunny capable of smothering a cat to death simply by jumping on top of it. 

In one of the crates nearby I spotted a small pale-gray tabby. “Alfie” was printed on the label. He was a skinny guy, his face oddly pinched. His eyes had a far-off look that struck me as wistful, as though he was begging Take me – though in retrospect I realize the look was a sign of ill health. I filled out the paperwork, and the next night I brought him home to be my shop cat.

When Daniel and I arrived at work the following morning we realized Alfie was suffering from some sort of digestive problem. Small brown puddles of diarrhea were scattered across the floor; the smell was so acrid it burned our eyes. “I’m not going in there,” choked Daniel, reversing back out through the door. After filling my lungs with fresh air, I dashed in and started the cleanup. I opened the windows and turned on a fan, but even an hour later the stench was enough to turn our stomachs.

I took Alfie to the vet, who prescribed a course of antibiotics – sadly, all for naught. The poor cat slept, ate and shat. This was no ordinary defecation. We’re talking epic shitting. One of us would turn off the sander, only to hear a sickening sound like that of a sex worker at an all-night pancake place attempting to squeeze the last dregs of ketchup from a plastic bottle at 5 in the morning. Twenty years before, a customer had told me to burn a candle as an antidote to nauseating smells. I took to burning crumpled sheets of newspaper, setting up miniature pyres around the shop and lighting them as necessary, hoping my insurance agent wouldn’t show up for a surprise inspection.

“You know, this is really not OK,” said Daniel after a couple of weeks. “You can’t expect people to work in these conditions.” 


— Nancy Hiller, author of “Kitchen Think” and “Making Things Work.” Read more of Nancy Hiller’s profiles, which we call “Little Acorns,” via this link.

Know Your Enemy

Posted on by Lost Art Press
The trees on our street. I know the one on the right is a pear. And there’s a red maple on the left. But a few of them were mysteries.

Years ago I was in England with Roy Underhill (no, this is not a Penthouse letter), and we had to walk from our hotel to a restaurant to meet Peter Follansbee (I know this sounds like a woodworker’s wet dream, but, well… OK it was). 

Anyway….

It was a long walk, and we had to pass through some woods and walk by a canal. And during the entire walk, Roy is pointing out all the names of the trees and plant life. “That’s a Grimblethorne – punicus polifficus! And look at the size of that Shandyback Fufflenewt tree – you never see them in a stand of three like that. Did you know the Fufflenewt tree was an important player in the Battle of Hastings? And that its bark was ground down in former times to use as a poultice for people suffering from dingleworm?”

And then I realized: I know almost nothing about living trees, except for the obvious species – oak, maple, walnut, locust, cherry. When my kids ask me: “What kind of tree is that?” My standard answer is: “Let’s kill it, and I can tell you.”

If you are like me, there is help for this problem. I recently found an app called Picture This that identifies plant life, and it really, really works. I’ve toyed around with a lot of other apps that identify trees, and none has made me happy. 

Picture This is expensive for an app – $30 a year. But during the past week it has brought me more joy than even the weather radar app on my phone (ask Megan about how much I love my radar). I have spent many mornings identifying all the trees and bushes in our Covington neighborhood. And then reading more about them through the app.

Picture This also does a lot of other things that don’t interest me, such as diagnosing plant diseases and suggesting how to care for them. Sorry people, I still just want to kill trees. 

The interface is pretty easy to use. While inside the app you point the phone’s camera at the tree and press a button. In a couple seconds it identifies the plant and spits out a bunch of information about it, including how to care for it, where the species grows, poems about it, symbolism it is associated with, etc. etc.

If you think I’m full of it, you can try the app free for seven days.

— Christopher Schwarz

Disclaimer: Nobody paid me for this blog entry. I bought the app with my own damn money. Blah, blah, blah.