A few (well, OK "many") year ago I did some experiments with this method. I
used BLO - the heavy metals dryer type. I took a bunch of beech blocks -
about 3"x3"x15", bored a good sized hole in the middle (where the blade
would go if it was a plane), and filled it with oil. After a good soak -
long enough that the oil was coming out the ends of the wood, I checked them
daily. Most of them had skinned over in a few days, but a decent scratch in
the wood would expose wet oil. After a few weeks, a deep scratch wouldn't
expose wet oil, but a split would show that the oil was still wet in the
middle. Some months later, splitting one open revealed that he oil had
polymerized all the way to the center.

I didn't check to see if the hardness or durability was effected, and I
didn't have either raw or non-heavy metal laced BLO available...

-James

-----Original Message-----
From: oldtools-bounces@r...
[mailto:oldtools-bounces@r...] On Behalf Of Thomas Conroy
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 8:34 PM
To: oldtools@r...
Subject: RE: [OldTools] finishes for beech planes

Galooterati:

Tom Ellis asked:

"Anyone have any idea how long it would take a
plane [soaked in] raw oil to dry well
enough to use?"

I don't know about raw oil, but around twenty years ago I bought a "new old"
English smoother, one of dozens of identical planes found in a barrel in a
hardware store completely unused and never finished in any way. I stopped
the mouth with glazier's putty and kept it full of boiled linseed oil until
the oil showed at the ends. As best I remember it was dry enough to handle
and to have been used in a couple of weeks. 

As it happens the plane never has been used, but that has nothing to do with
the oil: the problem is that the blade is made out of pot metal. This was my
first wooden plane and I sharpened it and set it and tried it over and over
again trying to get it to work; it was only when I had other, old, planes to
compare with it that I really convinced myself that the steel was bad and
simply wouldn't hold an edge. I've often remembered bitterly the amount of
work I put into that plane before I tried sharpening it. Someday I'll get a
decent blade for it, or maybe try hardening the one it has.

Before soaking in oil the wood of this plane was very pale, but the oil
turned it a gorgeous dark red. I had a similar experience with my first
bookbinder's sewing frame, also of unfinished beech and many years old when
I bought it: it turned from the palest biscuit to deep red when I soaked it
in oil. Somewhere in my experience I think I have seen two items from the
same piece of wood, soaked in oil immediately after purchase with fresh-cut
surfaces and soaked in oil some years later after sitting and oxidizing for
all that time. Both looked pale-biscuit before finishing, but the fresh
surface didn't darken much with oil while the old/oxidized surface darkened
strikingly to a deep red. In consequence I have never been quite convinced
by the claim that American beech is paler than European beech: I have seen
old/unfinished European beech as pale as any American beech I have seen, and
I have seen American beech that darkened markedly when an old surface
 was oiled. I think the apparent difference is more a matter of different
seasoning and finishing practices than any real difference in the wood.

Tom Conroy
Berkeley

      
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