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Can I treat untreated wood with linseed oil before the varnishing?
Hello my name is John and I own a small boat, a Kombi Norwegian dinghy, made from cold moulded mahogany veneers.
In case the title wasn´t clear enough I will explain further. The underside of the hull is scraped clear of any varnish and is completely untreated and has not been treated with anything for almost one year. My friend told that this winter would be a good time to treat the wood with linseed oil but I am not convinced. What i´m really asking is; will the linseed oil will interfere with the varnish making it impossible to varnish properly? Also, is varnishing supposed to be done on completely untreated wood?
I hope this post is seen by someone who knows their stuff and I say thank you in advance.
/John
Hi John
I know a lot of old school varnishers and boat builders would have probably followed this sort of practice, using highly thinned oils first to penetrate the wood deeply. Especially on working or non stable wood boat constructions. I personally have never done this but then I don't really work on boats of that type.
My number 1 question to you would be why are you considering doing this?
In my view, mixing combinations of products like this is a little risky. If you run into issues with creating a bond between the products down the line or contamination etc it will be very difficult to correct. If you want some deeper surface penetration then I would probably recommend more highly thinned varnish coats to begin with.
If you want to give it a go then I would certainly recommend trying the process on a piece of scrap timber first to see how the two products complement each other.
Also, is your boat an epoxy, cold moulded construction?
Cheers
Dan
Hi dan,
the boat is made with resorcinol glue and each veneer is only one millimeter thick and there is only five of them.
I am interested in trying this so the wood is protected under the winter.
/John.
Hi John
Ok, if it was an epoxy construction then I was going to suggest that as a protective base coat. If it were me I would recommend doing some tests, one with linseed oil and one with a heavily thinned varnish.