The Forestry Forum

A feller told me last week that veggie oil is as good a wood sealer for fencing and siding as you can buy. I realize you can get told anything. Anyone ever try it? It's real cheap in a 55 gallon drum.

ya get what ya pay for and you will have yurself a world class bug collection....
looks good...

till the tailights dissapear or the check clears...

which ever comes 1st...

Also a good attractant for mold and fungus. I suppose when it turns green, you can tell everyone it was treated 'without pressure'.  ;D

Honestly, ya gotta wonder where some people dream this stuff up from.  ;)

I was almost too embarassed to ask the question. Now I know why my sixth sense was protesting so much. ::)

Okay for french fries. Bad for siding. :)

QuoteIt's real cheap in a 55 gallon drum

  What's the price by drum lot ??

Just one little question... 

Have you ever smelled rancid oil?

And, do you want a whole fence of rancid smelly oil?

I don't think bugs are the only thing it'd collect... eeeeew...

asy :D

Quote from: SwampDonkey on July 24, 2007, 06:15:23 AM
Also a good attractant for mold and fungus. I suppose when it turns green, you can tell everyone it was treated 'without pressure'.  ;D

Honestly, ya gotta wonder where some people dream this stuff up from.  ;)

can we spell be cheap...

Yep, sounds like a bad idea to me - there are a select few vegetable oils that don't go rancid.  Olive oil is one of them, and I can't think of any others offhand.

and that cheap price was?

VO makes great bio diesel but i would not put it on a fence

I think I see a pattern here. i don't know what to say. Maybe . . . .

Quote from: kevjay on July 24, 2007, 08:28:08 AMOkay for french fries. Bad for siding.

:)

So out of all the responces, who has real testing data to support their thoughts?


Kevjay, I would put a few diffrent types on some boards or a fence and see what happens.

Ya mean I gotta write a technical report?  ;D  ;)

Quote from: SwampDonkey on July 24, 2007, 05:43:10 PM
Ya mean I gotta write a technical report?  ;D  ;)

At least a few pictures of the failures. ;D

I got two bottles of rancid oil in the cabinet in the other room.
They are yours as proof Reddog! :)

Veg oil only goes rancid when it does not dry into the wood, or wiping the extra off. A bowl of the oil will go bad setting there. I have used Sesame and other oils to finish cooking stuff and it has worked fine.

Ever leave any of that cooking stuff out in the elements for months at a time? 

I just opened a 5 gallon container of peanut oil that I bought in 1999 and gave it a tentative sniff. It smells fine. Of course PO is not VO. And it was closed. Not apples to apples.

Quote from: OneWithWood on July 25, 2007, 11:34:33 AM
Ever leave any of that cooling stuff out in the elements for months at a time?

Have you ???

No, can't say that I have.  Which is why I asked.  ;)

Quote from: Reddog on July 24, 2007, 06:56:44 PM
I have used Sesame and other oils to finish cooking stuff and it has worked fine.

I trust you wash those utensiles once in a while...

My 2 cents would be to go with a product made for the job - Thompsons, Cuprinol, whatever - It's a pain to do it once, having to clean something off that didn't work & start over is twice a pain.  It seems to me any kind of food oil would  draw all sorts of critters to lick, chew, & pretty much do in what it's on. I'm thinking of hedge hogs, bears, coons, you know - all those ones with teeth.  :D

Anyone ever use McCloskeys stuff? It's a brand carried a Wal Junk but I was in there buying more Helmsman Spar Urethane for an interior beam and browsed. I bought a gallon of McCloskeys Dec`k and Siding "Stain".

I put the quote on "stain" because I have a general technical question on it. The can reads:


So my question is, is this stuff labeled a "Clear Tint Base" because it is engineered to have pigments added for custom colors or can I use it as is? I am ging to begin a test sample today with it but would like all the info I can get oin what the product is intedned for.

I just had to modify my post here. I re-read the label and they do infer the product will offer UV protection as is. So I guess my question boils down to has anyone used this product or even the McCloskey brand?

The stuff I used on my picnic table was colored in the store from a can of 'base'. They had a chart and you pick the pigment. Sounds like the same idea with your stain. Mines got UV to. I can't speak of the brand names. Nothing to draw comparisons with since the home owner is probably only using this stuff once in years and something else claims to be better by the time you have to do it again.  ;D :D :D :D

For all you naysayers, have you considered linseed oil?

Linseed oil is a vegetable oil and it probably is still the primary ingredient and one of the best things to use in a primer or sealer. It was common practice to add additional linseed oil when priming old weathered house siding, that is before they started siding houses with metal or plastic. It is not a top coat and exterior paints usually had a mildew preventing additive, but it is an excellent sealer for wood and I do not believe any better non toxic sealer has been found.   ;D

Linseed oil would be fine for your bowl turnings if your dishing out food in them. The excess is wiped off. But, for siding I wouldn't do it. Never seen it done here. These old farm houses did well to get even one coat of white wash on them and the clapboards where changed about every 25 years.  ;D :D :D :D

Go to your local paint store and read the labels on primers and chances are it will be linseed oil based.

Back in the good old days, when I was in high school, a buddy and I took a job painting a huge old two story house that had not been painted for so many years there was no trace of paint on those weathered boards. Based on the advice of the owner of the house and the local paint store, we used regular exterior oil based house paint and thinned it with equal parts of linseed oil for the primer coat. Then when we put the top coat on over the primer, we had excellent coverage of the white where with test strips we could not get coverage with three layers of top coat.

The house turned out great, with the only problem we had was when painting the trim, my buddy dropped a half gallon of paint on a entrance roof and the paint shot out of the can and sprayed on the driveway. Then we had to find out a recipe, I think it was cornstarch and lye, for paint remover to clean up the driveway.  ;D ;D

Vegetable oil does make an excellent sealer for wood. This is no wives tale.  ;D

Gary, I guess I'll have to look in the store. I've got about 20 cans of every kind of paint and stain I can imagine and Linseed oil is not an ingredient in any of it.  Any that might have had it have been either replaced with modern Alkyds or has something to keep stuff from growing on it. ;) Other than that, it's used on food safe bowls (most often boiled Linseed) with nothing added, not to be set outside in the elements.  ;D

If you go back and Google linseed oil as I just did, you will find some interesting things. Pure untreated and refrigerated linseed oil is also used as a nutritional supplement as it is high in omega-3.

Also you could conclude that straight untreated vegetable oil is not suitable as a sealer as it is very slow drying and is fodder for mildew. However what is sold as boiled linseed oil is an excellent and cheap wood sealer, but not a top coat. As one reference said, if you were sealing a mile of wood fence, boiled linseed oil would be a good choice because of the lower price. The problem is that people that are searching for a more natural product should know the additives in boiled linseed oil used to speed drying and prevent mildew contain metalic salts such as chromimum and arsenic.  :)

And yes, it is used as a base in many paints as it is the cheapest and yet high performing base available. However in some paints it has been replaced by better and more expensive products.

So the answer to your original question is yes and no. Just plain vegetable oil would not perform well, but processed vegatable oils such as boiled linseed oil would work, but not provide any UV resistance.

Gary thanks. That is exactly the kind of detailed information I was looking for.

In a little twist, I recently (last year) tried a concoction of pure coconut oil, flaxseed (linseed) oil, and a couple of other ingredients which was touted as a "diabetes cure all" if a certain regimen was followed which also included some moderate excercise. I already get more physical excercise working than alot of people add to their lifestyle, but I stuck to the dietary supplements fairly strictly.
It did lower my glucose levels significantly. The linseed oil tastes great to me. I still use it on my eggs, cottage cheese, and fish. It has a nutty/fishy taste and I love fish. The fishier taste the better. I often just open the fridge in the morning and pop the plastic top on the squeeze bottle and shoot a nice amount straight into my mouth and swallow the stuff. It nearly makes my wife puke. :o :)

So maybe I should use the  linseed oil as a sealer, and when my sugars get a little high I could always take a bite out of my fence as I walk by to control my levels. Hey that would cover my fiber needs for the whole week too I bet! Plus, with all the resin in the ERC pickets, I would probably kill any parasites lurking unkown in my system as well. We might be onto something here fellows. ;D

I've been using flaxseed (linseed or Huile de Lin is french) oil for years in my diet. Dad also uses it in the form of crushed flax in cereal and bread and he also uses the coconut oil on crackers. He is diabetic, but doesn't need medication or insulin. Salmon and herring have the Omega fatty acids in their oils as well, 3 and 6 both.  ;D

I love to gobble cod liver oil too. Straight out of the bottle. I just don't keep it in stock regular like I should. I don't like the pills because they make me belch and I don't like the taste of it that way. Love it goin down though.

Linseed oil is pretty much all that is used on decks out this way. If you presure wash a deck and re apply  a coat of oil every few years, a redwood deck will last forever. I actually prefer to use Penefin which is 90% rosewood oil, I think it penetrates better, and does not get dark like the linseed oil gets. All of the top brand  deck and siding sealers sold out here are linseed or rosewood oil formulas, but they are not cheap. They are usually around $30 a gallon. :o ::)

Where you buying your stuff? I haven't seen paint or stain for less than $30 a gallon in years here. I also ain't seen pure linseed oil used on nothing outside. I never seen a natural product used in pure form that didn't rot. The whole notion stinks rotten. ;D

hey kev...i use nothing but veggie oil to seal my turnings..it works very well for me..but! remember..you just want to seal it not drown it..every little bit of oil must be removed from the wood..it does indeed seal it nicely tho for me..if anyone needs proof of this look in my gallery..all were sealed with corn oil,then after all excess oil was removed i used a padding laquer which is applied directly on the lathe while it spins to give them their luster..i have had turning around that i had done years earlier with no after effects..note: the wood must be dry as  water does not mix with oil ;D

Go check out your wooden cooking spoons they have had cooking oil in them since they were first used. It dont all wash out bet they aint rancid.

When i finish a batch of spoons i throw them in hot clean oil then wipe them down and run them through the dish washer never had a bit of problem.

guess the OP needs to run the fence thru the dishwasher after the veggie oil application to keep the rancid down...

It would be to expensive for a fence but I use almond oil on my cutting boards and turnings.  I also started making some new shop cabinets out of Ash and sealed it in almond oil.  It will take a few more coats but I like it