Sealing wood with oil

Big Guy Have you thought about, boiled Linseed oil, thinned well with Real Turpentine, you have to use real turpentine not Turpomin, which is some times sold as being the same, smells like pine trees, Just be sure to keep all rags etc. in a air tight container, or soak in a bucket of water when done, as this mix has been known to spontaeously combust, when drying. I have used this for a lot of things, and am quite happy with results.

 

Actually, reefermoon, I have. Having no experience, I am delighted to get this kind of feedback, since I was leaning toward tung oil. I understand that boiling polymerizes the linseed oil, increasing the waterproofin ability. How does it affect penetration? Based on PAR's comments, how long does it last? I anticipate the boat staying in the water year round... fresh water, BTW. I like turpentine

 

sealing woog with oil

Big Guy 10- 20% real turpentine to boiled linseed oil, heat by placing in hot water, carefull mix is very flammable, will penetrate and harden even mildly rotten wood, as long as its sound, lots of ventilation, wood must be dry, do on hot or at least warm day, the dryerb the wood the better, old time all purpose wood saver, if you want to experement first, take a old weathered hammer or shovel handle soak in the mix, it will travel by capillary action the lenghth of the handle, swelling and hardening as it cures, takes a while, it is almost like an epoxy, the cost is cheap, home center stuff, get some new empty paint cans to store it in, as it will absorb water from air when in storage, keep old rags in bucket of water for disposal, on plywood soak intto end cuts, cure takes some time, after a couple months it is paintable, this is a real old tried method, for many water proofing, wood preservation needs.

 

reefermoon - you have actually done this? Does the turps/oil penetrate across the grain as well and along the length? (The face on plywood, for example). Can you work the wood while the oil is setting up? (Sawing, drilling, etc?) I like the "old tried method" part a lot.

 

Big Guy, Boiled linseed oil isn't boiled, it's filtered and much cleaner then it's raw cousin. I wouldn't boil the stuff, though heating it can increase it's ability to penetrate wood.

Generally it soaks in, doing so rather slowly if you use the standard mixture of 50-50 most recommend (I use a special mixture with additives) It dries slowly, more so then most are willing to wait to use the boat it's on. It doesn't get past the glue lines in marine or exterior grades of plywood or any other waterproof adhesives used in the joints and seams found on the bottom of a wooden boat.

In this standard mixture it can attract certain types of bugs which will live on the surface. Additives can be used to address this on above waterline applications.

The attraction is the ease of application and the cost of producing. The draw backs are the little black spots that will live on it, the need for numerous coatings per year and the drying time.

Frankly it really shouldn't be used as a substitute for bottom paint in a craft asked to spend most of it's life in the water (fresh or otherwise)

Boat bottoms have been a difficult coating issue for a few hundred years. Previously, they just replaced the lumber after a time, knowing it was spent, because there was no 'save your butt' stuff in a can available. We now have a number of products to coat bottom timbers, in an effort to postpone the replacement planking.

Planking is considered a consumable part, just like the air or oil filters on the engine. It has a life span, which with good care and regular maintenance can be extended a bit, with extreme care quite a bit. Coating the bottom every season would be considered very basic care, not enough to extend the life of worn out planking. Coating the bottom with something that will not provide protection until the next haul out isn't good care, but in fact neglect and a quicker death will come to the bottom.

If you're intending to moor or berth this craft, it will need bottom protection. No oil short of an 1/8" coating of tar, is going to protect it for a year's mooring. Tar will cost much more then traditional bottom paints and be much harder to apply, especially smoothly.

I just replaced 40 year old planking on a powerboat. The paint and polyurethane in the seams kept the bottom reasonably tight until a few years ago. The planking was well past it's expected life and clearly received good care. It was painted annually and received repairs promptly.

A look at the log of ships of old and you'll quickly see that leaking bottoms was a big issue. The Santa Maria was pumped for 15 minutes every hour for the first month of her trip to the new world in 1492. The last several weeks of that trip required more and more time at the pumps each hour. 19th century ships with copper bottoms on a bed of tar faired as bad after just a few years in service. They dealt with it as they had to, by manning pumps until the water in the bilge was at a reasonable level. This was the life of men at sea, a task, just as important as a good sail set in a freshening breeze. There isn't any magic goo or wonder goob in a can, jar or plainly available, other then good construction, scheduled maintenance being done and well practiced seamanship.

Your selections are simple, embalm the bottom in cloth set in epoxy and one of the several paints available or just the paint. Of course this must go over a sound lot of planking. Painting over bad areas in the bottom is like putting a boob job on an 80 year old lady. It really doesn't help much . . .

 

Thanks PAR. I guess that sort of writes the final chapter on the whole oil question. I guess I am going to have to accept that longevity requires modern applications. I'm assuming that would mean glassing the bottom and sealing everything else with epoxy paint. I just realized that, if glass and epoxy and enamel had been available, Columbus and the Vikings and the Chinese junks would have used them.

 

We use Tung oil as an additive for construction sealants for its UV inhibiting qualities.I take home all leftovers from the bottom of the drum.I usually mix a small bottle with Mineral Spirits or Turpentine to use as a coating for stripped wood to provide a good base for varnish or oil based paint.I believe it would work to treat a hull,but my Lord,you would need gallons of the stuff to properly do the job,and this stuff aint cheap,counting the solvent carrier,it would approach 30 dollars a gallon.If you really want to do something the old way without wreaking havoc with the environment fit copper sheets to the hull below the waterline over tung soaked timber.It will cost you a fortune and be a ***** to do right but if its good enough for Magellan it will still work today.Be sure to use compatible screws so you dont create a electrolysis nightmare,and use only raw tung oil,not that thinned down mess.Keep a 2 gallon garden sprayer full of your mixture on board at all times,shake before applying,it might be a good idea to paint the sprayer black and leave it in the sun so the mess will heat up before spraying.I've always wanted a copper-clad bottom,just never got around to it.It would definately be the only one around!

 

Thanks for the thought, but I think PAR called it. Epoxy over glass and damn the torpedos. I guess I sort of figured that was coming, anyway. Did you really WANT a copper bottom boat? Copper is even more exopensive than epoxy. And it tastes awful... ;-)

 

Of course PAR was correct,but I thought you wanted to try something new(or old)I'm always interested in new approaches to a stale art,and as long as its not my boat the thought is even more attractive.Yeah,despite the obvious problems,a copper clad bottom seems really cool if one could pull it off.

 

Mostly, I wanted to try something less expensive, or at least, not prohibitively more expensive, but at any rate, something that I could maintain without resorting to a boatyard. Ideally, I would have liked something like pine tar or a natural oil, that wouldn't require Dow Chemical to get involved. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in the cards, so...
A copper bottom would be very cool. The closest I've seen is a home-made copperpoxy that looked really, really good. It was pristine, as it hadn't gotten wet yet, but it was fine.
It would be nice to be able to mine the experience of the past without giving up the performance that would keep the boat intact.

 

Just a thought. Suppose you coated a bottom with pennies? Set in mastic or something... dare I say epoxy... it might provide some impact protection as well as anti-fouling. And it would probably be cheaper...

 

Paint over sound wood is a very good, tried and true method of coating a bottom. It provides little more protection to the bottom other then keeping the moisture on the side it belongs. Boats were constructed BE (before epoxy) and they did work well and survive long lives. The 40 year old power boat I mentioned in the last post had only paint, no sheathing of wonder goo or fancy two part coatings. The paint was renewed every year, repairs to dings and digs which will occur if the boat gets any use at all. During the 40 years of it's life, it's had the bottom paint sanded off, been reprimed and painted on raw wood and repaired areas and repeated bottom paint sessions by each owner.

You don't need epoxy to live, man, just put the can down. Have strength, suck it up and admit it to yourself that you have it within yourself to carry on without resorting to epoxy. None of my wood boats has a 'glass entombed in epoxy bottom and they work, fine and are a bit lighter for it as well.

Epoxy is not fun to put on a bottom, unless you can roll the boat over and work down handed. Putting on the sheathing is the easy part, you'll need to learn the fine art of making love to the boogie board, dude. This is where the real fun starts and asking yourself things like "how smooth is smooth supposed to be?" or after you've been at it too long that day "it's smooth enough" which is true, until you come out the next time and see that area just sanded, but the sun is in a different place as is your head and all the smoothness seems to have run down the sides of the boat and fallen off, and you'll be humping the boogie board again while the light is good. Sooner or later you'll rationalize, "it's all under the water, man, it doesn't have to be that nice" this is the point the shop foreman would send home an overworked employee. If you lean even remotely towards obsessive/compulsive then you need to ask someone else to do this job.

How much does a penny weigh? How about 150,000, set in goo? Would the $1,500 in pennies, be better spent on bottom paint? You bet ya . . .

For what it's worth, Big Guy

 

Worth a lot, PAR. Paint, paint, paint, OK, I can do that. And no pennies. That was just a thought, anyway...
I'm a huge fan or workboat finish. It's always been a function over form thing with me in about everything. I'd rather have a clunker that works than a trailer queen that doesn't. Still, it's nice to hear from a wiser, though not necessarily older head, that's been there and done that, as it were.