wood cleaning, as seen on 'Kim and Aggie'?

weezl74

Hi there,

I had a hunt in the cleaning section of the mega index before posting, so v sorry Penny and Pink if this has been done before! And if it has, please will you merge me...:A

Kim and Aggie did a tip on cleaning and 'feeding' wood. You melted together some kind of wax and some kind of oil-Linseed, I think.

Does anyone know what the wax is, and where you get it?

Also, does it have to be Linseed oil? The only supplier for this I can find is a local art shop at £4.95 for a teeny jar!:eek:

Anyone got any thriftier ways to clean and nourish wood?

Thanks muchly for your tips...;)

Love Weezl x

morwenna

Beeswax, I think I have a recipe for furniture polish in one of my aromatherapy textbooks. I will look it up & edit this later - running off to work now!

JayJay14

Weezl - linseed oil is used for oiling cricket bats, and for oiling animals hooves, so a sports shop or a farm suppliers would probpably be a beter place to look.

ETA - I've just googled it and decorators use it (oil based paints etc) so you might be able to buy it somewhere like wilkinsons.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

For wood I use Balds balsam,it's a liquid that smells amazing and feeds and polishes wood.It cost around £12.99 a bottle but lasts ages and the smell alone is worth paying for.You can get it in Lakeland stores and it comes in light and dark wood varieties.
I have a lot of old polished wood and it cares for this perfectly.
Lord Sherrington do brilliant wood products too.Tesco sell these.

HaleBopp

Check out any hardware store or b&q, we got a huge amount of linseed oil in there for our kitchen worktops, about a tenner for quite a large bottle. I think you can buy beeswax from health food shops for about 50p to a £1... I'm off to source exactly the same things tomorrow as I want to a try this on our old kitchen table. Fingers crossed it works out well! Good luck, hay x

2cats1kid

Homebase do linseed oil. In fact I have a bottle in my utility room and no idea what I bought it for.

JayJay14

Popped into wilkinsons this morning and they have linseed oil 500ml for £2.49.

greenbee

I've used boiled linseed oil to treat my wooden work tops and chopping boards (stops them absorbing stains. It's great for any untreated wood. Boiled linseed is easier to work with than raw linseed oil, and is available in most DIY places.

For polished furniture use beeswax, but use sparingly. Apply with a rag, rub off with another rag, and when you're sure that it's all either come off or been absorbed, polish with a duster/soft cloth (I use old bits of velvet).

If the wood is VERY grubby, I wipe it with a damp cloth first, use a microfibre cloth to deal with any stickiness/stubborn dirt, and then polish. Once dirt has got into the grain of the wood it is very difficult to get out (hence the reason for making sure the wood is treated with polish/oil first, so dirt sits on the surface). Marks on untreated/oiled (but not polished) wood can be treated by lightly sanding and then oiling.

morwenna

225g beeswax (unrefined)
600ml turpentine
600ml water
50g pure soap flakes
10 drops essential oil

melt the beeswax in a bain marie, take it off the heat & add the turpentine. In another pan, boil the water and add the soap to dissolve it. Let this cool, add to beeswax gradually, trickle by trickle. Store the polish in a lidded container.

Recipe from The Fragrant Pharmacy by Valerie Ann Worwood.

(Sorry it took me so long, I hope it helps)