Wow,

Guys, this is the most confusing, unhelpful thread I have ever read.

One person says soak 'em, another says don't, one says boiled, the
other raw...what are we to do?

I have some very nice boxed planes but the beech has shrunk around
the boxing and caused some interesting distortions.  I was hoping
that soaking the plane (as Dunbar suggests) in oil would cause the
beech to expand and correct itself around the boxing.

The bigger the boxing, the worse the problem.  Any of you guys out there
have a set of full-boxed beading planes?  The big ones, 1/2" and larger
seem always to have the beech shrunk down around the boxing creating
cracks, gaps, etc.

Now I know I live out here in Californ-I-Aye so our weather is different,
but I can't believe the planes I have bought from M of A shrunk down
on the trip across UPS land.

Tell me someone has really DONE something with this?

Is there ANYONE out there who has had multiple successful experiences
soaking planes and getting them to return to their original shape,
and be usable?

Maybe we should soak them in diesel fuel, or ethylene glycol, or
I dunno, how about epoxy resin?   Maybe we should irradiate the  *@#$^@*
things?

I spent part of last weekend making candles.  How about soaking them
in hot liquid beeswax for a day or two?

It seems to me either you soak them or you don't.  If the plane is
1/2 soaked, then the sole isn't going to be true--now, let's not
start THAT discussion again.

Help!!!!

Maybe the old timers had as many different opinions as we do?

OK! Sounds like its time for a weekend project. I've got a handful of junker
(really junk. I couldn't even give them away at the last galoot-a-thon)
planes, so this weekend, I'll venture out to the local wood dorker shop, and
pick up some boiled linseed oil.
        The most reasonable proposal I've seen so far calls for 1/2 linseed
oil, and 1/2 mineral spirits. I'll end -up a couple of the junkers, and see
what happens. details and results to follow....
                        --JD

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Houtz [mailto:gph@h...]
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 1999 1:24 PM
To: List for users and collectors of antique tools
Subject: Re: Soaking Planes In Oil


Wow,

Guys, this is the most confusing, unhelpful thread I have ever read.

One person says soak 'em, another says don't, one says boiled, the
other raw...what are we to do?

I have some very nice boxed planes but the beech has shrunk around
the boxing and caused some interesting distortions.  I was hoping
that soaking the plane (as Dunbar suggests) in oil would cause the
beech to expand and correct itself around the boxing.

The bigger the boxing, the worse the problem.  Any of you guys out there
have a set of full-boxed beading planes?  The big ones, 1/2" and larger
seem always to have the beech shrunk down around the boxing creating
cracks, gaps, etc.

Now I know I live out here in Californ-I-Aye so our weather is different,
but I can't believe the planes I have bought from M of A shrunk down
on the trip across UPS land.

Tell me someone has really DONE something with this?

Is there ANYONE out there who has had multiple successful experiences
soaking planes and getting them to return to their original shape,
and be usable?

Maybe we should soak them in diesel fuel, or ethylene glycol, or
I dunno, how about epoxy resin?   Maybe we should irradiate the  *@#$^@*
things?

I spent part of last weekend making candles.  How about soaking them
in hot liquid beeswax for a day or two?

It seems to me either you soak them or you don't.  If the plane is
1/2 soaked, then the sole isn't going to be true--now, let's not
start THAT discussion again.

Help!!!!

Maybe the old timers had as many different opinions as we do?

It reminds me of reading multiple woodworking
books that deal with the same topics. (Or books on
gardening, programming, etc.)  Never read just two
books, because they'll contradict each other.  Usually
the best you can do is find a consensus and go with it.

-Tom Ellis

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Houtz [SMTP:gph@h...]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 1999 1:24 PM
> To:   List for users and collectors of antique tools
> Subject:      Re: Soaking Planes In Oil
>
> Wow,
>
> Guys, this is the most confusing, unhelpful thread I have ever read.
>
>

> The most reasonable proposal I've seen so far calls for 1/2 linseed
> oil, and 1/2 mineral spirits. I'll end -up a couple of the junkers, and see
what happens. details and results to follow....

First, I question the addition of the solvent. if the goal is to fill
the pores of the wood with something to retard the movement of water
(and thus the movement of the wood) you'd want all the solid material in
there that you can get. Besides, the solvent is going to take a looong
time to get out.

Second, Why linseed oil? It's lousy at stopping water vapor and if you
let this process (the ooze) happen passively it seems to me that you'll
only fill the largest pores while letting zillions of little ones stay
mostly clear. If you can put the plane into a vacuum tank (like a paint
pressure pot,) pull a modest vacuum on it, wait an hour or two, then
replace the evacuated air with the oil, you can penetrate several inches
of any wood with total saturation of the oil.

If you must use the linseed oil, I'd suggest using it straight up. But
if you want the best water vapor barrier this side of some plastic
resin, shellac is king. It's not the best for liquid water but is
reportedly so for water vapor. Hey, all those lac bug larvae can't be
wrong.

Just wanted to muddy this thread up a bit.

Good luck,

Ron

On 15 Jun 99 at 10:24, Paul Houtz wrote:

> One person says soak 'em, another says don't, one says boiled, the
> other raw...what are we to do?

Experiment on something you don't care too much about? Here's one
more data point for you.

I have never been a fan of linseed oil on woodies - I don't care for
the way they look (clearly subjective) nor the way they feel.
Normally, I just clean off the surface dirt and paint spots with
mineral spirits and put a coat of wax on them. This just feels right
to me, and I like the way they look, but there is little consistency
here. Patina is pretty variable.

Recently, however, I acquired a couple of molding planes on eBay, and
these were seriously dry. Not only did they look it, but the mineral
spirits were just instantly absorbed by the wood, which usually
doesn't happen. Tim Swihart was over for a visit and suggested the
linseed oil treatment, since he has had good success with it. Since
one of these planes was dogmeat anyway, I figured I would give it a
try on the two of them. I stuck the ends in a tub of linseed oil (I
used boiled, thinned out a bit with turpentine). They didn't absorb
too much after a couple of days, so I ended up alternating ends and
pouring some oil in the mouth (and pretty much everywhere else). Paul,
they were probably soaking when you and your daughters were visiting.

When the planes had sat for a few days to dry out, I was unhappy to
note that the surface was glossy and sticky. However, just for the
heck of it I applied a generous amount of mineral spirits and rubbed
out the surface with 0000 steel wool. I did this until the gloss (and
the sticky feel) had disappeared. Then I let them dry for another day
or so and applied paste wax.

The bottom line? They looked much, much better than they started. The
dry look was gone, and they were now a very dark brown, which is not
really the way I like them - most of my other molding planes are
lighter in color. However, one of them was a quarter inch hollow I
bought to match a round that was also this color, so they look pretty
good together. I'm not about to do this with any other planes unless I
run into another one that looks completely dried out. But given the
choice of wood that looks like an old fencepost or wood that looks
"healthy" but dark, I'll go with the latter.

I did not notice any changes in shape, but these planes did not seem
to suffer any distortion as a result of drying out, so I probably
wouldn't have spotted it anyway. I suspect their small size may have
had something to do with that.

-Ken
Ken Greenberg
IT #321; Blue Galoot #82
400 Los Gatos Blvd., Los Gatos, CA 95032
http://www.calast.com/ken/Personal/wood.htm

Well I was going to stay out of this...but.

Many years ago I helped restore an old wooden schooner with wood
blocks. The Master Carpenter, who had been around the Horn in a square
rigger, insisted that the blocks we made be treated with linseedoil.
The oil was heated to 180 degrees and the blocks soaked for 24 hours.
Well they soaked overnight and all the next day. I saw the boat about
12 years later. The skipper told me that the blocks were original and
all they got was routine maintainance. Foe the life of me I can't
remember what wood was used but it was HARD.

Dan Hogan
dhhogan@n...
I use'em-don't abuse'em-don't collect 'em

"Ellis, Thomas R" wrote:
>
> It reminds me of reading multiple woodworking
> books that deal with the same topics. (Or books on
> gardening, programming, etc.)  Never read just two
> books, because they'll contradict each other.  Usually
> the best you can do is find a consensus and go with it.

Or never read more than one book on any subject!  We don't
need no steeenkin' consensus.

I soaked a woodie scrub plane in boiled linseed oil to
close up some checks.  The oil never even reached the toe
of the plane (above the oil level).  So I turned it upside
down and soaked it some more.  Never did get the checks
completely closed, but the plane works fine.

Frank (Fort Worth Armadillo Works)

     Well, I guess I have to jump in, too.  Have an Ohio Tool Ogee that had
some severe checks from its time out here in
the Great Tool Desert (Actual bought it over in Fort Garland, CO, which is even
more of a desert than here.)   Brought
it home together with the better part of a set of H&Rs (Pierre Fogel and a few
others will remember that gloat ;-)) and
plunked it down in a can of raw linseed oil.  Week with one end in the oil,
then a week with the other end.  That was
over a year ago.  Those checks have all but disappeared.  The disappearing
didn't happen right away although they had
closed noticeably.  I suspect that the oil took some time to equalize across
cell walls and to relieve the residual
stress from the cracks.  That plane is noticeably heavier than any of the other
comparable size beech planes and
slightly darker.
     The important thing to me is that the oil brought back to good user status
a plane that was well on its way to
unusable.  While I wouldn't recommend this treatment for all woodies, it sure
worked on this one.
                              George

When I think of a hard woodl on a boat I usually think of teak.

But I have to confess that I'm not sure what a block is.  A pulley
block?  If so, I've heard the preferred wood  was lignum vitae.

*

On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 17:15:32 -0800 "Dan Hogan" <dhhogan@n...>
writes:
>Well I was going to stay out of this...but.
>
>Many years ago I helped restore an old wooden schooner with wood
>blocks. The Master Carpenter, who had been around the Horn in a square
>
>rigger, insisted that the blocks we made be treated with linseedoil.
>The oil was heated to 180 degrees and the blocks soaked for 24 hours.
>Well they soaked overnight and all the next day. I saw the boat about
>12 years later. The skipper told me that the blocks were original and
>all they got was routine maintainance. Foe the life of me I can't
>remember what wood was used but it was HARD.
>
>Dan Hogan
>dhhogan@n...
>I use'em-don't abuse'em-don't collect 'em
>
>--
>

On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 13:31:21 -0700 Ron Hock <ron@h...> writes:
>> The most reasonable proposal I've seen so far calls for 1/2 linseed
>> oil, and 1/2 mineral spirits. I'll end -up a couple of the junkers,
>and see what happens. details and results to follow....
>
>First, I question the addition of the solvent. if the goal is to fill
>the pores of the wood with something to retard the movement of water
>(and thus the movement of the wood) you'd want all the solid material
>in there that you can get. Besides, the solvent is going to take a
looong
>time to get out.

Agreed.  (then again, what do I know?)

>
>Second, Why linseed oil? It's lousy at stopping water vapor and if you
>let this process (the ooze) happen passively it seems to me that
>you'll only fill the largest pores while letting zillions of little ones
stay
>mostly clear

To the contrary the nature of capillary action is such that the narrowest
pores will be better filled that the wider ones.

Linseed oil is used because it is all the old-timers (in Europe) had.  I
think I'd stick with tung oil.  Regardless, it is not being used in an
attempt
to seal the wood, it is being used to totally impregnate the wood.

. If you can put the plane into a vacuum tank (like a
>paint pressure pot,) pull a modest vacuum on it, wait an hour or two,
then
>replace the evacuated air with the oil, you can penetrate several
>inches of any wood with total saturation of the oil.
>

Sure.  But it is a lot easier to just put one end of the wood in oil and
leave the other end out in the air and let the oil wick up through it.
Try it with a piece of scrap.  It's pretty neat.

>If you must use the linseed oil, I'd suggest using it straight up. But
>if you want the best water vapor barrier this side of some plastic
>resin, shellac is king. It's not the best for liquid water but is
>reportedly so for water vapor. Hey, all those lac bug larvae can't be
>wrong.

How do you saturate a plane with shellac?  I'd think the best you could
do
is coat the upper surfaces, leaving the sole uncoated, and that sounds
like a real good way to warp the plane.

I had thought that having oil continue to seep out of the wood
for the next 25 years was an advantage to the process, not a
disadvantage.  I don't think the small amount that would get transferred
to the workpiece would cause any subsequent problems with finishing.
Silicon oil--yes.  Linseed, no.

We've heard from one fellow who did two planes wihth unboiled linseed
oil 25 years ago and hates the result.  But a couple of monthe ago we
heard from another who routinely does it.  Maybe it's largely a matter
of taste?  I'm not going to argue (well, maybe I just did) with those who
have more experience than I.  But it seems those who are experienced are
not in agreement either.

At 06:52 PM 6/15/99 -0600, you wrote:
>     Well, I guess I have to jump in, too.

>plunked it down in a can of raw linseed oil.  Week with one end in the
oil, then a week with the other end.  That was
>over a year ago.  Those checks have all but disappeared.  The disappearing
didn't happen right away although they had
>closed noticeably.  I suspect that the oil took some time to equalize
across cell walls and to relieve the residual
>stress from the cracks.  That plane is noticeably heavier than any of the
other comparable size beech planes and
>slightly darker.

>                              George

     A question George. Did the raw linseed oil seep back out and if so for
how long? Also was the plane sticky for a time?

                              Ian

~  -----Original Message-----
~  From: owner-oldtools@l...
~  [mailto:owner-oldtools@l...]On Behalf Of Ron
Hock
~  Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 1999 9:31 PM
~  To: oldtools@l...
~  Subject: Re: Soaking Planes In Oil

Just using Ron's posting as a starting off point:

~  First, I question the addition of the solvent. if the goal is to
fill
~  the pores of the wood with something to retard the movement of
water
~  (and thus the movement of the wood) you'd want all the solid
~  material in
~  there that you can get.

I'm no wood technologist, but gather that there are two kinds of water
in wood:

free water in the cells;

water in the cell walls;

If I remember rightly, the fun (shrinkage-wise) starts when the free
water is dried out during the first stage of seasoning, and water then
starts to migrate from the cell walls.

Now .......... will linseed or any other oily fluid replace the
cell-wall water and prevent dimensional changes therein?

Just asking!

Jeff

>     A question George. Did the raw linseed oil seep back out and if so for
>how long? Also was the plane sticky for a time?

    >                         Ian

Didn't note any seepage.  Could have been some early, it's not a plane that I
use very often.  No, the plane is not
sticky.

                         George

Questions about water displacement in wood cells while drying, or oil
soaking snipped...

My understanding is that initial drying is the loss of cell body (inside the
cell) water. this would be where almost all of the shrinkage occurs. Because
the cell bodies are basically boxes of stuff, oil should replace it pretty
well, filling in any voids.

        as a zoologist, Animal cell walls don't have a ton of water in them.
Plant cell walls re a lot thicker and more structural, and may have water,
but a plant biologist could answer that better than I. As far as water
displacement: I don't think an oil would replace any bound (molecules held
in place by chemical or physical properties of the media they are in) water.
water is a pretty small molecule (compared to oils), so a physical
displacement is unlikely. When water is held chemically, its usually because
water is polar (like a magnet), and I'm pretty sure oils aren't, so that
shouldn't displace it either.
        the only water that I think the oil would displace would be "free"
water - water that isn't held in by any particular mechanism other than the
fact that there's stuff around it preventing it from evaporating away.
        My (limited) understanding of how the oil works to help a cracked
plane is as follows:
        When the plane was made, it was (presumably) made of fairly well
seasoned wood, and may have had a surface finish put on. The blade is
fitted, and everything fits nicely. Zoom past N years. The plane has been
used without a lot of geographic moving around. Its well acclimated to where
it is, and any minor shrinkage or expansion has been adjusted for over the
years as the plane has been used.
        Enter the Galoot. The plane is scooped up and probably moved pretty
far away. Across the ocean, US, or whatever. In any case, into an area that
ahs a significantly different hot/cold/humidity environment.
        The surface of the wood adjusts quickly, the center more slowly, and
the plane checks (cracks).It checks because the inside and outside of the
plane have different moisture contents, and so, are different sizes. Enter
the oil. The plane is soaked in oil, and the wood becomes saturated (or
nearly so) with oil. The outside and inside of the plane may have different
moisture content, but he oil content is the same (and probably will remain
the same for more or less ever). As the oil soaks into the wood, there is a
certain amount of expansion, and the cracks (being the path of least
resistance) close up.
        If a polymerizing oil is used, over time, the plane will become a
block of polymerized oil, and will be really stable. If a non-polymerizing
oil is used, it *should* ooze out (but who knows what will really happen?
Stay tuned for more)...
        This technique is more or less what is used by biologists to prepare
tissue microscopy. You replace all of the water with unpolymerized plastic,
polymerize the plastic, and now you've got something that you can slice
really thin (like lightwave thin)...
                        --JD

OK My next question:
        As the cell wall loses water, is there any real change in its
thickness?
        also, is there a general structure for a plant cell wall? in an
animal, the generic lipid by-layer model makes it pretty easy to see that
the presence of water would have little effect on cell wall size...
                        --JD

On Wed, 16 Jun 1999 08:55:15 -0700 Paul Bethke
<pcbethke@n...> writes:
>James writes,
>Questions about water displacement in wood cells while drying, or oil
>soaking snipped...
>and... Plant cell walls re a lot thicker and more structural, and may
>have water, but a plant biologist could answer that better than I.
>

        Which caused Paul to say:

>OK, I'm a plant biologist. Plant cells walls contain a lot of water.
>Think paper towels, cellulose sponges and wet blue jeans. Even kiln
dried
>lumber is 6-8% water, and all of that is in the walls.

        Which prompts me to ask if there is a way to
get water back into the cell wall before putting oil
in the free spaces?

WARNING!        WARNING!        WARNING!
PROBABLE DUMBASS IDEA AHEAD!

        What if someone, not me mind ya, was to steam
a dried out woodie for awhile then dip it in some oil
(linseed, tung, boiled or otherwise)?  Would that
be good, bad, or indifferent?

Regards,
Steve

Paul says:

>OK, I'm a plant biologist. Plant cells walls contain a lot of water.
>Think paper towels, cellulose sponges and wet blue jeans. Even kiln
>dried lumber is 6-8% water, and all of that is in the walls.

Has anyone out there put a moisture meter to one of the oft-mentioned
dried-out woodies? It seems to me that if they were much drier than
the 6-8% Paul mentions then Steve's re-hydration idea would be worth
trying.

Randy Moore
Waxahachie, TX

Who was REALLY glad to see "Walker, Texas Ranger" finish
filming and get the hell off the road to my house.

~  -----Original Message-----
~  From: owner-oldtools@l...
~  [mailto:owner-oldtools@l...]On Behalf Of Steve
~  Reynolds
~  Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 1999 6:29 PM
~  To: pcbethke@n...
~  Cc: oldtools@l...
~  Subject: Re: Soaking Planes In Oil
~
~       Which prompts me to ask if there is a way to
~  get water back into the cell wall before putting oil
~  in the free spaces?
~
~  WARNING!     WARNING!        WARNING!
~  PROBABLE DUMBASS IDEA AHEAD!
~
~       What if someone, not me mind ya, was to steam
~  a dried out woodie for awhile

The process of reconditioning timber that has distorted through
improper drying involves something similar to controlled steaming (I
believe).

~  ................. then dip it in some oil
~  (linseed, tung, boiled or otherwise)?

While still hot?

~  ................ Would that
~  be good, bad, or indifferent?

Interesting? Even spectacular?

Man or mouse, Steve? 8-).

Jeff

     I got to this thread late, so please pardon if my thoughts below have
     been mentioned already and I missed it in my latest round of oldtool
     email catch-up.

     Why not soak with oil until it seeps (if possible), wipe off the
     excess, let stand for awhile to make sure the seepage has slowed
     or stopped, then finish with shellac?

     If the shellac will adhere (I know I should know this from the past
     lac threads....), then it seem like you'd have the best of both
     techniques: oil in the pores and a good protective barrier for
     water (vapor), and perhaps a barrier to retard later seepage.

     Just a thought, I haven't actually tried it.  Depending on comments
     though, I might, because I've got a jack and a jointer that are
     pretty dry and on the list to be brought up to code.

     Kevin, Easthampton, MA
     - who this weekend banished the lawnmower to the outdoors with a
     tarp so that he could use the shed to store some 4' lengths of
     red oak logs that are destined to become Windsor chair parts. :-)

I know this thread started with using oil to close up checks in old
woodies, but I fear that one might get the notion that this is a good
thing for all woodies.

I recently got a set of H&Rs from the MofA. These were all in primo
condition, no checks or cracks, but they definitely seemed very dry. I
was planning on giving them a good soaking with an oil finish, but first
asked Patrick's advice. He advised against this, said they've held up
fine for 150 years this way, so why do anything? He suggested at most
giving them a coat of paste wax.

I did the latter and I'm very glad I didn't do anything more. With the
wax they only get a little darker and they have a very nice feel. If the
wax dries out, it's trivial to put another coat on.

I love fiddling and fondling my old tools as much as the next galoot,
but sometimes restraint is the best course of action.

Carl

On Thu, 08 Jul 1999 21:08:56 -0400 keenan <keenan@m...> writes:
>Douglas S Caprette asked this a while ago . . .
>
>> One problem with this strategy is that Van Dykes (which used to sell
>> tung oil for $19.95/gal) has discontinued tung oil as a product.
>>
>> So, does anyone know anybody who sells tung oil at a reasonable
>> price in multi-gallon lots?  I'm thinking like maybe $150 for 5
>gallons.
>
>and I recently came across this . . .
>
>Jamestown Distributors catalog, page 120
>Parks Tung Oil Finish - Quart  $8.08  (# PTOQ)
>                        Gallon $25.57 (# PTOG)
>
>
>Catalog request @ http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/
>Phone 800-423-0030
>
>
>Good Luck,
>-Joe Keenan
>(still hunting for the elusive #71 - that I can afford)

I'll check on this.  Meanwhile, I found a source that will sell
South American TUng oil (supposed to higher quality than Asian)
for $100 for 5 gallons delivered to GreenBelt, MD.  As I recall,
Tung oil is porduced in North Carolina, I may be able to fo find a
domestic source.

Do you know off-hand if this Tung oil finish is adulterated?