The interior of the upper bay of my Dutch tool chest…before it got beat-up from heavy use. I appear to have it stocked it for (surprise!) a class that involves dovetails.
I’m not sure yet how I’m getting there, but I’ll be in Tampa, Florida, Oct. 10-14, at the Florida School of Woodwork, teaching folks how to build a Dutch tool chest, soup to nut. Because it’s a week-long class, we should have time to not only install the hardware, but to fit out the interior (as shown above) and get the chests painted!
Andrew is prepping the pine for us now, and will then turn his attention to the battens (oak) and the interior bits (cherry).
There are a few spaces left – and I’d love to see you there…even if you choose to paint yours a color other than blue. (But I can’t imagine why you would!)
The exterior of mine – in its former pristine state.
And on my getting there: It’s always a series of mental gymnastics for me. If I fly, I can get there in about 5 hours door to door (including time spent getting to and milling around the airport). But it means I have to judiciously decide then pack my tools in a small Pelican case, and pray they make it with no damage (and with one exception in 15 years, they have). But I can’t bring my tool chest – and in thi case, it’s the very chest we’re making. If I drive, it’s about 13 hours door to door, and my back will hate me. But I’ll be able to bring everything I could possibly need – including the chest. And either way, I’ll miss cat.
– Fitz
p.s. Now that “Workshop Wound Care” is at the printer – and I’ve finally finished my last issue of The Chronicle for the Early American Industries Association – I can now concentrate (almost) fully on getting my Dutch tool chest book. (Ya know, along with editing whatever comes in next at LAP, writing blog entries, working on my house, making furniture etc.)
I did not build this for the cats. But I’m not sad that Olivia likes it.
I have a small flower garden in front of my house, and after years of being annoyed by having to sit down on my porch to don an old pair of running shoes for weeding (and checking them for spiders first, because they lived on the porch), I finally broke down and bought myself some garden clogs. They’re easy to slip on and off as I walk in and out the door, which is great, but I don’t want to leave them on the porch (they are much more likely to take a walk than my nasty old running shoes). But then I got annoyed by the amount of dirt I was tracking into the house, and bought myself a galvanized steel boot tray. But…just inside my front door is an HVAC return, so the boot tray had to go across the hall, and well…that was a good excuse to build a piece of furniture* to hold it – something that could fit just inside the door to make it easier to stow my clogs, and provide enough space underneath to allow for air flow.
Before all I built was tool chests, my M.O. was to find a Shaker piece that I like and modify it to suit my space, needs or both. So I went back to my old ways and spent a few days leafing through the various Shaker books in the Covington Mechanical Library.
I had almost settled on a washstand when Will Myers dug up a photograph of a piece illustrated in “The Encyclopedia of Shaker Furniture” by Timothy D. Rieman and Jean M. Burks (Schiffer, 2003), and in volume 2 of Ejner Handberg’s “Shop Drawings of Shaker Furniture and Woodenware” (Berkshire Traveller, 1975) – a “Bake Room Table” that was in the North Family Dwelling House at Mount Lebanon. I liked the drawings, but didn’t fall in love with the form until I saw the (unique) table in a photo.
Will found this photo (by William F. Winter) in “Shaker Furniture: Craftsmanship American Communal Sect” by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews (Dover, 1950).
The shelf that cuts across the side cutouts was, according to Handberg, probably added later. And what are those round cutouts at the back? Maybe it fit around a pipe of some kind?
The original, at 66″ long and just more than 28″ high, looks lighter and more graceful than what I made, but I didn’t have the space to copy its size. And I chose to make the cutout at the feet a bit shorter so that I could fit the shelf (my entire reason for building the piece!) above the void. I also skipped the support at the front between the drawers; the overhang on my top wasn’t enough to require it. Still, it was the starting point I needed – that, and the size of the boot tray it was destined to hold.
I also changed the construction, with a 3/4″-thick solid dust board (or perhaps it should be called a drawer support, given there are no drawers below it?), dadoed below the drawers instead of the nailed-on 2-1/4″-wide rails front and back, and nailed-on runners (if Handberg is correct). That last decision was a tactical error; the wider board provides more protection against racking…so I ended up pocket screwing (go ahead – come at me; there are period pocket screws in plenty of Shaker and other period work) a rail behind the drawers and under the back of the shelf (likely overkill, as I am wont to do).
I don’t typically do “proper” drawings/models (notice the lack of dados). I want to see just enough of the form to be able to decide if the proportions work for me. (The height is 30″.)
And instead of classic Shaker wooden pulls, I used iron ring pulls, to match the iron nails that attach the top. As a result of its almost-square form, size and metal hardware, I think my result skews a bit Arts & Crafts.
It’s a simple build for a simple customer. Were I building this for a more discerning end user (i.e. one that is paying me), I’d probably use sliding dovetails to attach the dust board/drawer support (and possibly use a web frame instead of solid wood there) as well as the drawer divider, and inset the back rails in grooves. And my drawer dovetails would be better.
The Build I started by gluing up the side panels and drawer support. All the wood that shows is cherry, but I glued up the drawer support from a 5″-wide or so piece of cherry on the front, and poplar behind. (I guess it does show at the back to the cats, but they don’t care).
This side and drawer support are all approximately 3/4″-thick…but I don’t know for sure. Once it was flat and close enough to 3/4″, I called the pieces ready for glue.
Then I marked out the dado locations, and played around with the curved cutouts at the bottom – and I ended up with curves that are slightly higher than what I drew. I cut them out on the band saw, then cleaned up the cuts with a combination of the spindle sander and sandpaper (#120 and #180) wrapped over a piece of the cutout (a sanding “fid”) to clean up the rough spindle-sander scratches.
The bottom curve is what I drew on the screen – it was too round. To my eye, it looks better with an 1-1/2″ or so of a straight line at the feet.
Then, I sawed the walls of the dados (which are a 1/4″ deep), knocked out most of the waste with a chisel and cleaned up the dado bottoms with a router plane (there’s a video here of this process, should you care to watch).
With one side arranged dados-up on the bench, smear a bit of glue in the dados, then put the shelf and support in place. Brush glue in the mating dados then put the other side in place on top. If the shelf and support are held tightly in well-fit dados and not moving around once they’re in their housings, it makes glue-up a lot easier to handle by yourself. If your fit is too loose, knock a wedge or two in on the underside to push out any gap and tighten things up. After the glue is dry, you can use a chisel so cut off the protruding end of a wedge (or, if it’s below the shelf at the bottom where it won’t show, just leave it).
Then, lift the assembly to get clamps across it front and back at the dado location and check it for square … then foolishly move the now-quite-heavy assembly off your bench and onto the floor by yourself because it will look better in a picture that way. Be sure to then complain that your back hurts.
If you do move it, check it again for square. If things aren’t quite square, a foot at one bottom corner and a bit pulling or pushing at the opposite top corner can easily shift things (usually). Once it’s square, walk away until the glue is completely dry.
After I took the clamps off, I realized I was being boneheaded; the piece needed some wider horizontal members to keep it from racking. So, I pocket-screwed 3″-wide rails between the sides at the back above the drawer support (poplar) and below the shelf (cherry). Then, the right side developed a slight cup at the top front – and I was afraid it would get worse. So, I pocket-screwed a 3/4″-thick x 3″-wide piece of cherry about 1/2″ back under the front of the drawer support. Uh … it’ll create a nice shadow line.
Tangent: I should have known things would go at least a little bit wrong. Some of the cherry I used for this piece is cursed. I’d bought the 5/4 stuff in mid-2017, with plans to build a Stickley 808 server for a Popular Woodworking article. I was seduced by the wood’s curly grain and remarkably low price … even though I knew curly cherry could be a right royal pain in the butt at the best of times, and that the low price indicated it was already misbehaving. But … so pretty!
I commissioned reproduction hardware from John Switzer at Black Bear Forge, and stickered the wood to acclimate for a month or so in the PW shop. Then I surfaced it to 7/8″ and glued up my panels. It all looked fabulous. For about a week. Then all the panels developed a gentle cup. OK – I could flatten it again, and build the piece out of 3/4″ instead of 7/8″. It happened again. So I put the panels aside and decided to build the server out of white oak, just like the originals. I bought the oak … then I was no longer employed at PW.
Those cherry panels left PW with me, and they’ve been in the basement at Lost Art Press ever since. (John’s gorgeous hardware has been in my basement ever since.) Chris recently used one of the panels as a desktop across trestles. And after flattening it and putting heavy stuff atop it, that panel has remained flat; I thought the curse had been broken. Chris says he’s protected from it there is no joinery involved in his setup.
The curse was not broken – but the addition of a front rail seems to have at least overcome it. For now. But never forget that wood hates you.
After the clamps were off, I marked centerlines on the drawer support and 5″-wide drawer divider, then clamped the divider firmly in place, and countersunk screws to hold it in place from underneath. It is simply butted tight to the underside of the top.
Use a square to align the divider to the front, then clamp it in place before drilling pilot holes for screws (I used three screws, though two would likely suffice).
I had a beautiful wide piece of cherry from C.R. Muterspaw for the top that I sure wish I could have used at full length. Not only was cutting it painful, but I think a longer overhang to either side added lightness – but rendered it not fit for purpose.
IWally liked the longer top, too – more real estate for treats.
I cut a small roundover on each end of the top’s back rail, sanded it, then glued it in place to the back of the top. I could have gotten away with leaving it off from a functional POV, but I wanted the extra overhang that offered for the front edge.
I then dithered over best to attach the top, and after considering the use of traditional buttons (which would require 1″ shorter drawer sides and backs to accommodate their attachment), had decided on figure-8 fasteners (which would require drawers sides and backs only 1/8′ or so narrower than the fronts), when Chris talked me into using blacksmith-made nails. I liked the way they looked on the cupboard in “American Peasant,” so…
The only great-looking nails we had (they were made by Mark Kelly, a blacksmith at Mt. Vernon) were 2-3/4″ long; I really should have used 2″ nails. It was a bit scary to drill so deeply into the cherry sides. But I got away with it… or so I thought for about 14 hours. I did a test drilling setup for tapered pilot holes, and after successful tests drilled my pilots and hammered the nails in place. They looked great. Whew! By the next morning, a small split developed at one location. But you can’t really see it without bending down and looking closely. And I’m not showing you.
The customer is dismayed but accepting of the flaws. (I blame the curse.)
Further adding to the flaws count: It turns out I didn’t get the divider perfectly centered; the left opening is 1/16″ smaller than the right. So I fit each drawer front and back to its opening with a No. 51 shooting plane. For those who don’t already know, a tightly fit drawer is key to smooth movement. These have maybe a 1/32″ reveal side to side. (And wood movement won’t be an issue, as that will be top to bottom, where I left about 1/16″.)
Another tangent: Years ago, I erred on the side of too loose, and those drawers bug the bejeezus out of me to this day. It’s this piece – the drawers, which have just under a 1/8″ reveal on both sides, rack every time I slide them in. Yes, I have some thin UHMW tape…no, I have not yet applied it even though I know it would likely solve the problem.
A smart person would have made the sides of a length to allow that back rail to serve as a drawer stop. I need to glue in 3/4″ thick blocks.
The drawers are half-blind dovetails at the front and through dovetails at the back (the tailboards are on the side, so that the drawers can’t be pulled apart in use). The only advice I have on cutting drawer dovetails is to run the grooves for the drawer bottoms before transferring the tails to the pin boards. That way, you can stick a shim of the right size in the grooves to help align the pieces (a trick I’m pretty sure I learned from a Chris Becksvoort article in Fine Woodworking).
The drawer back is 3/4″ narrower than the front, to allow the bottoms to slide in underneath it. The bottoms are 1/2″-thick paint-grade plywood, rabbetted to fit the 1/4″ wide x 1/4″ deep grooves. I cut a slot in the center back, then nailed it to the underside of the back to keep it from moving. (A more discerning client would get solid wood, sized to allow for expansion and contraction – but that’s not an issue with the plywood.)
I cut half-blinds so rarely that I can’t remember if I prefer to secure the board vertically in a twin-screw vise or flat on the bench to make the cuts. These were cut in the vise – but I think my overcuts end up longer – thereby making the waste in the corners slightly easier to remove – when I clamp it flat to the bench. (Yep, I know lots of folks pooh-pooh overcutting. “Whatev,” as the kids haven’t said for some time, now. There are plenty of period drawers that employ overcuts; I’m in good company.)
Regardless of how you make the saw cuts, chiseling out the waste is a matter of working back and forth between the baselines and creating square surfaces on both faces. And a fishtail chisel can help you get into the corners.
And to finish things off, instead of leaving blue-tape pulls in place for years, I decided on traditional iron ring pulls (32 mm). Simply drill a hole where desired to fit the staple legs, then bend each leg back with a pair of pliers, and hammer the staple legs in place. I decided to locate the pulls slightly above center. I taped off the location, marked the hole, then drilled it over a backer board so as to avoid blowout on the backside.
The finish is soft wax 2.0 – easy to make, safe to use and simple to re-apply if it proves necessary. You’ll find directions for making and using it in Chris’s latest book, “American Peasant” – a free PDF download (see pages 65-7).
Now that my new piece is at home and in use, I’m confident the Curse of the Curly Cherry is finally broken … as long as the drawers and tray stay in place, covering up that cursed wood. (But I remain leery of using the two panels still in our basement!)
I admit it’s a bit of shame to cover up that lovely curly cherry on the shelf…but it was the only way to break the curse.
And if I ever get to make this again, well, I’ve identified all the problems! If I call this one a prototype, maybe the mistakes won’t bother me as much. (They will. That is my curse.)
– Fitz
*aka a procrastination technique to put off building a pantry cabinet or the bookcase for the bottom of my staircase.
Many of the visitors to our shop spend more time checking out the books in the back than the books in the front. In front are all the books Lost Art Press publishes (along with our Crucible Tool offerings). In back is what we call the Covington Mechanical Library – the very large and overfull floor to ceiling bookcase that holds most of the furniture reference books we use, along with a few backup tools, a very few collectibles and Mr. Chirpy (a mechanical bird that chirps when you walk by the embedded motion sensor). Most of the books are grouped together in a loose conglomeration of like subjects. There are, for example, sections on chairmaking and chairs, Shaker furniture, campaign furniture, etc. (And there are many books that could go in more than one section – and sometimes they change section – or whole sections move – without me knowing it’s happened. I blame the cats.)
And because not everyone can visit us (which is probably for the best, as we’d never get anything done if they could!), I’m going to go through the various bays in our bookcase and share with you what’s there (and I might divide some of the larger bays into smaller sections). There is no set schedule – but it will always be on Sundays.
To ease us in, I’ll start with The History of C. Schwarz in Woodworking Publishing section. In it are bound volumes of Popular Woodworking Magazine from 1997 when Chris started at the magazine through the year F+W Media stopped offering bound volumes, 2007. But Chris, who is the most hyper-organized person I know, also clipped every article he wrote and kept them in binders – those are alongside the bound volumes. (“Those are clips for when I got fired,” he says. Ever the optimist.)
“Ultimate” was almost an ultimatum for the covers.
There is also a copy of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from the first press run (it’s the book that let him quit as editor of PWM before he got fired), and a leather-bound volume from that same printing. Alongside that are three copies of his “Anarchist’s Design Book,” one from the first press run, one from the first press run of the revised edition (with the red ribbon)…and one that’s been lopped off at the front edge and bottom, for those who complain that the three Anarchist’s titles are different sizes. Tucked amongst them is a black-cloth-clad ATC (it’s the 11th printing…which may or may not be the first black cover. We’re old and can’t remember). Then two copies of “The Anarchist’s Workbench” – one with black debossed type and cover art, one with white (the first and second printings.) There is also a copy of Nancy R. Hiller’s “Making Things Work” from our first press run of her book – because it belongs in this super-special-to-us section.
This month I am headed to Omaha, Nebraska, to build a Dutch Tool Chest over two days for the Omaha Woodworkers Guild, and anyone can buy a ticket to watch. And if you are lucky, you can try to win the finished tool chest in a raffle at the end of the seminar.
The event is May 21-22 and is being held at the German American Society in Omaha. During the session, I’ll build a Dutch Tool Chest using hand tools and discuss all the different hand operations and how you might be able to use them in your shop. Plus, there will be squirrel jokes.
I’ll be covering:
Dovetailing
Dados
Basic hand mouldings (beads and thumbnail mouldings)
Rabbeting
Tongue-and-groove work
Lots of sawing and shooting board work
Finishing surfaces with handplanes
Installing surface-mount hinges
At the end of each day, I’ll also give presentations on other interesting topics – on one day I’ll examine the history of workbenches in Western culture and on the other day I’ll do a presentation on chair comfort and show off one of my stick chairs (I think I have one of those thingskicking around here somewhere).
The admission fee also includes breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack.
You can register for the event here. You can read more about the two-day seminar here.
This should be a fun weekend event. I’ve never been to Omaha, and I haven’t talked to many human people during the last two years (except for Lucy, Megan and the cats). I’m sure I’ll be a little rusty, but I bet we can all get through it together.
On the left are shades of blue (surprise!) from Heron Linseed Oil Paint. Stacked in the center are two shades from Allbäck Paint. The small bottle is “blown” linseed oil from Heron; the large bottle is “purified” linseed oil from Heron. At back is the naughty stuff: odorless mineral spirits.
Chris and I have been experimenting with linseed oil paint for about a year now, since he started working on his next book, “The American Peasant,” and we’ve both painted a lot of wooden stuff with it – from large flat surfaces on chests to fiddly roundish bits on stick chairs to decorative curves and pointy things. We’ve used it on ring-porous woods including oak, ash and elm (looks great; it is a pain in the posterior, like all paints on ring-porous woods) and closed-pore woods such as poplar, linden and white pine (looks great, easy to apply). We have not used it on other material, but I’ve read that it will stick to many other building materials (plaster, metal, masonry and more). I’ve even read claims that it will stick to anything. But I know for a fact only that it sticks to wood (and fabric).
What we have not done is tried every color, brand or brush available. And, all of the stuff we’ve painted is indoor stuff. We have no personal experience with this paint on exterior work…though I am hoping to have some in the near future, if I can find someone to use it on my house for less than the going rate for a kidney*.
A hand detail of a red oak stick chair with one brushed coat (plus a few touch-ups) of Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Holkham Green.
This is what we know, thus far.
Most linseed oil paint is made from raw linseed oil and ground natural pigments – no added binders, driers, solvent or synthetic emulsifiers – so it’s far more environmentally friendly than most hardware store paints. (Milk paint is also environmentally friendly – my hardware store doesn’t carry it or linseed oil paint.)
Linseed oil paint is more expensive than latex, acrylic or milk paint (the other paints we know well). However, it takes fewer coats for full coverage – so penny for penny, it ends up not so expensive after all (plus it takes less of your active time – and no sanding! – if you’re including the human factor in your price calculations). Depending on the wood, we have found that it takes one coat (closed-pore woods) or one coat plus a touch-up here and there (ring-porous woods) for coverage that fully colors the surface and allows the grain to show through (which is what we want). Neither of us has had to apply two full coats to achieve our desired coverage – though if you want to cover the grain a second coat will do it, in our experience. (The hanging cupboard that is now the Anthe bathroom cupboard has two full coats of paint only because Chris decided he didn’t like the green of the first coat on that project, so it’s topped with one coat of blue – and on that piece, the grain no longer shows through. NB: He likes the green, just not on that project. He’s a mystery.)
Spell carvings in linden, that were painted (with a 4″ shed-resistant woven 1/4″ nap roller) with Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Old Blue.
Linseed oil paint is a lot thicker than any other paint we use, and with a good (or at least decent brush), a lot will remain in the bristles, and you should “draw it out” quite a ways from the initial strokes. That is, deposit the paint from the brush onto the project, and make long strokes, pulling the paint with as you go, then go back to the original deposit of paint and draw it out again, overlapping the first stroke. I don’t have to dip the brush back in the paint as often as I do with latex, acrylic or milk paint. But because of its low viscosity, you might find the linseed oil paint more difficult to use at first – or at least different than what you’re used to. Be sure to draw it out a lot and not leave it too thick, or it will drip and/or sag as it dries (and take longer than it ought to dry). It’s kind of like spreading a crumb coat on a cake – you want full coverage, but nothing extra.
Some instructions say to wipe on a coat of washed linseed oil and let it dry before painting, others say to use the paint on bare wood. We’ve done both, and both have worked for us. For what it’s worth, I am now a convert to a base coat of linseed oil. It makes it easier to draw out the paint (much like a second coat of most brushed finishes are easier to apply than the first coat).
At left are very nice brushes given to me by Mattias Hallin, made by Gnesta Penseln. The ones on the right are more readily available: Wooster “Yachtsman.” Both kinds have natural-bristle brushes.
I’ve tried out a number of brushes, and Mattias Hallin, a long-time user of linseed oil paint, says his favorite are the Gnesta Penselns shown above. Hardware store brushes that are decent are the Wooster Yachtsmans. I think you can see from the picture, though, that the brushes on the left will hold a heavier paint load. However…then you have to clean them; they’re too nice to toss. (More on that at the bottom.) Travis at Heron paint recommended to me Escoda Natural Chungking Bristle Brushes, but I’ve not yet tried them (also too expensive to not wash!).
Most of the instructions I’ve read say to use the paint as it comes…but we’re good at disobeying. To make it a little easier to draw out and to make it lay out better with less effort – that is, dry without brush marks (without having to “tip off”) – we sometimes add about 10 percent low-odor mineral spirits and mix it (yes…this makes it less environmentally friendly – and I would not dilute it for exterior work). I cannot stress enough to mix it well…whether or not you add mineral spirits (or turpentine, which the owner of Heron Paint said he uses when he needs to thin the paint a bit). The pigment settles fairly quickly, and you want it to be evenly suspended in the mixture. So, I have made friends with every hardware and paint store between my house and the shop; they are kind enough to shake up the paint as needed in their fancy paint shaker machines. I try not to abuse the privilege…which is why I spread my mixing asks among four locations. (I want a fancy paint shaker machine for our shop – preferably the old kind that clamps top and bottom, and runs the risk of spraying paint everywhere should the top come off the can. The newfangled fully contained ones are no fun – not enough risk. Plus they’re a lot more expensive.)
The poplar top of this stool is painted with one coat in a custom shade of full-test linseed oil paint from Heron Paints. I shook this can by hand, since I was confident it hadn’t been sitting on a shelf for weeks/months/years.
Linseed oil paint takes a lot longer to dry than any other paint we use. So while it takes only one coat, or one coat and some spot touch-ups (either while the first coat is still wet enough to easily work, or after it’s completely dry), it will be dry to the touch after about 24 hours at average room temperature and low to mild humidity – and even then, there will still be some areas where it might have been applied a little too thickly that will transfer to the white shirt you shouldn’t have worn while leaning up against it. We have found it takes two or three days to completely dry (longer in cold and/or humid conditions) to the point where it’s “carveable” without making a small mess (in case you, too, are covering your work in spells). If you have curious pets or curious kids, keep them away from the work for a while. And you do need to be mindful of kicking up dust around a freshly painted piece for 24 or so hours, as it can stick to the wet paint. You can speed up the drying by exposing the work to UV light – but do not put it in direct sunlight to dry (that resulted in a pimply surface when we tried it). Update: This might be due to the thinner; the full-strength stuff dries just fine in the sun, I’m told by several log-time users.
Here, I’m painting an elm coat rack in a custom shade of linseed oil paint from Heron Paints (a close match to Benjamin Moore 2060-30). First, I wiped on a coat of washed linseed oil (as recommended by the paint maker) and let it dry overnight. I then poured some of the paint into a Mason jar, added a splash of low-odor mineral spirits and shook it up by hand for maybe 10 minutes. It was easier to brush than the non-diluted paint I used on the stool, but the color is not as saturated on the surface (that is, more of the wood is showing through, and it will need a touch up in a few places. But also, elm is a ring-porous wood, and doesn’t take paint as well as the poplar. So there are a lot of variables going on. Whatever. We’re happy with the way it looks, and that’s the goal.
About the “easily work” I mentioned above: I’ve found I have about two hours in which I can manipulate the fresh paint and still have it lay out flat as it dries. Any longer, and it’s already dry enough that the brush marks remain where I’ve gone back and retouched an area.
Here, Wally is showing the contrast between velvety black and Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Antique Gold (Chris carved through it after it was dry). I added a topcoat of washed linseed oil, which added a little depth to the sheen, and added a bit of protection to the carved (and thus de-painted) areas.
More coats of paint will make the finished item shinier – so if you like shiny (we prefer no more than a soft sheen), consider more than one coat. After the piece is completely dry, you can add a topcoat to adjust the sheen a bit to your liking, and to blend areas where the paint looks more flat and/or more shiny (which I think might be a result of adding mineral spirits…though I haven’t yet done enough “experiments” to back up that statement). We use soft wax or simply a coat of washed linseed oil.
Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Old Red (with spells added afterward, obviously), with a topcoat of purified linseed oil.
So what is this “washed” or “refined” or “purified” linseed oil? It’s a purified version of raw linseed oil, and all we know for sure is that it is lighter in weight, lighter in color (and so results in less yellowing) and dries faster than plain ol’ raw linseed oil. There is also “blown” linseed oil, which is another method of purification that involves air, and is even lighter in weight and dries faster still. We hope to have expert information on these processes in the future, and more experience with the various purified/cleaned/washed/blown/magically delicious versions of the stuff. But for now, we can tell you that “purified” dries faster and yellows less.
What about cleanup? Well…here’s where my argument for using this paint falls apart (a little bit). Linseed oil soap is what everyone says to use for cleanup. And it works. But it does not work quickly or easily. I cleaned one brush and it took three intense rounds of soaping, combing and rinsing…and I still wouldn’t call that brush perfectly clean. I’ve read that the easy solution is to simply suspend the brush in linseed oil, and it remains at the ready for the next use! OK…but the number of blues I have alone…I don’t have room for suspending five brushes, and I have cats. So I use the relatively cheap Yachtsman brushes, and throw them away. (Yes, in this I am a bad person.) And because it’s linseed oil, I let the brush dry hard before putting it in the trash (ditto on any rags I’ve used).
So when would I use linseed oil paint vs. acrylic (faux milk paint) vs. actual milk paint? Well, they all result in different looks, so that’s my first consideration.
Linseed oil paint gives it an old-world look, and, after a topcoat of oil, has a low sheen that I like. And it “feels” like the right choice for any project of Scandinavian or Eastern European origin (but that’s probably because we started using it on American Peasant projects). I have yet to try it on a tool chest – and won’t offer it for commission chest builds until I’ve road-tested it (which I will do soon). Plus it’s harder to clean up afterward…so I have to be a lot more careful when using it than I do with “milk paint” or milk paint. That would be factored into the finishing cost (along with the one-use paint brush). But I’d use it on a personal project for which I had ample dry time during which I could keep any cats away (two scenarios that almost never coincide!).
General Finishes “Milk Paint” is my long-time favorite for ease of use, price and cleanup. It dries with an almost-flat finish, cleans up with water, goes on easily, lays out nicely, dries quickly and typically takes two coats. And because it dries quickly, I can recoat late in the day if my first coat was early that morning. Plus it needs no topcoat – so two coats and done, then easy cleanup. I can apply it with a cheap chip brush and toss it, or use then easily clean one of my long-beloved Purdys. (Sherwin-Williams bought Purdy in 2004 – I don’t remember exactly when the brushes changed, but change they did. I haven’t liked any I’ve bought since.) However, last year, General Finishes severely curtailed the color choices, and got rid of my two favorites, Twilight and Blue Moon. (Yes, I know I sound like the old fart that I am.) And no local paint store carries it – so I’d have to buy it one place, then pay another for the privilege of mixing it to a custom color. Boo. (And that’s high on the reasons why I’m planning a road test soon on the linseed oil paint.)
Actual milk paint is a lot of fun to use. But it’s also a bit of fuss. It takes many coats, and while it dries quickly and cleans up easily, it doesn’t always behave as I might expect, and each color I’ve used performs a bit differently. So, there are a lot of test boards and a lot of time involved in getting a good finish (for me) from milk paint. (Peter Galbert and Travis Curtis both produce gorgeous milk paint finishes – and I think they would agree that it’s not a fast process…even when you use it all the time!) Plus most people prefer it with a topcoat (though I love the dead-flat look it imparts), and that can’t be done until the paint is fully cured – and the more layers there are, the longer that takes (after a few bad experiences, I don’t even think about a topcoat until a week has passed after my final paint coat). But there are a lot of gorgeous colors available, and I love the variegated look I can achieve with it. (Plus, kids can chew on it safely. Not that I encourage such behavior.)
And that’s all the topics I can think of for which have answers…but I expect we’ll have more info to come.
Happy painting!
– Fitz
*A bourbon-loving-person-of-Irish-heritage kidney – so, not worth a paint job.
The same stool from above, now with a coat of linseed oil on top of both the painted and unpainted surfaces. Olivia looks good there.
