Linseed Oil

[plockton18]

My wooden mast has 10 ash cleats near its base for tying off the various halyards involved with its gaff rig. These are currently varnished, but I'm thinking of stripping them and coating with linseed oil instead - on the basis that the varnish is unlikely to stand up to the halyards being sweated up on them. If I do go for linseed oil, should it be boiled or raw?

 

[fluffc]

Boiled I believe. And if you thin it down with Genuine Turpentine it'll penetrate even further into the wood.

If they are already varnished, I wouldn't worry about the varnish coming off in use. The action of the rope that causes the varnish to come off will subsequently keep the wood 'clean'.

 

[ianc1200]

I used boiled last year for a couple of relatively unimportant bits, a boom support and the piece of mahogany that the searchlight goes through, by end of season just dirty and unpleasant. Now trying permeable Sikkens Cettol type varnish.

IanC

 

[Peterduck]

I would also advocate Cetol. I'm quite pleased with it. Linseed oil turns the timber black after a while, the raw being faster at this than the boiled. When I bought my old ketch all the spars had been treated with linseed oil, and I had to plane the lot to get down to clean wood.
Peter.

 

[andrewbodenham]

Last season I experimented with linseed on a number of minor parts including block shells, crutch chocks etc. I hoped for a penetrating, durable, natural finish. Following the advice of Hervey Garret-Smith in his book, Marlinespike Seamanship, I cooked up the parts in hot linseed oil before allowing them to dry and cure. They looked (and smelled!) great.
After one season on the boat the parts have all gone manky and black. During the hot spells last summer some of the
blocks oozed oil all over the place.
To summarize - a complete failure, never to be repeated.

However, I'm still attracted to the concept of an oil finish rather than varnish, and will experiment with other possibilities. Anybody else had any success in this field?

 

[Peterduck]

Certainly; the Cetol that I mentioned before is an oil-style finish. Read the literature put out by Sikkens, though, because there are different grades of Cetol, which do different things. I used HLS to begin with, several coats, and then finished with a coat of Filter 7, which is a UV filter. It's the same with Deks Olje; you'll need to use No. 1 until no more will go in, and then apply a coat of No. 2. No. 1 is very thin and will soak in, whereas No. 2 is quite viscous, and provides a good protective layer for the No. 1.
Peter.

 

[sailorman]

Be Very Carefully with Linseed Oil on rags. soak in water or lay the rags out flat ( outside any building) to dry. it self ignites in certain conditions /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif