What to use on stripped Victorian doors?

Johnjones7656

H8, does anyone have any advice on what stain/varnish/oil to use on stripped Victorian doors please? We’d like to keep them a fairly natural colour. Thanks

DigForVictory

Where we want to leave wood protected but it's own colour, we use linseed oil. You can get it from screwfix and of course, the bigger the volume, the bigger the saving.

We've also waxed wood but doors seem to do better oiled.

Johnjones7656

Just to add to this...company that stripped them have advised us to hang them before staining/waxing them-is this the right way to do it?

DigForVictory

My experience with both oiling & waxing has been that I had slightly more control when the door wasn't hung, but I can see checking that the door moves easily at all stages is reassuring.

The armourer who taught me oiling wood was used to rather smaller objects than doors, but his advice of get it clean, into the shape you want, check it fits then remove the wood & soak it overnight held fine, even as we struggled to make a door sized oiling bath. (Biggest door first!)

Apodemus

DigForVictory wrote: »

Where we want to leave wood protected but it's own colour, we use linseed oil. You can get it from screwfix and of course, the bigger the volume, the bigger the saving.

We've also waxed wood but doors seem to do better oiled.

I buy it in 5l containers from an animal feed merchants...which means no VAT. But you need to know what you are buying and I warm mine to 42C before use to denature any residual protein mixed in with the oil. Remember to be careful with used oily cloths, which can overheat and ignite if left in a heap.

You could also use a home-made beeswax polish - your choice whether to blend beeswax with natural turpentine or white spirit, it really needs a carrier to make it penetrate the wood. Personally I prefer beeswax for inside and linseed oil for outside.

Apodemus

DigForVictory wrote: »

My experience with both oiling & waxing has been that I had slightly more control when the door wasn't hung, but I can see checking that the door moves easily at all stages is reassuring.

The armourer who taught me oiling wood was used to rather smaller objects than doors, but his advice of get it clean, into the shape you want, check it fits then remove the wood & soak it overnight held fine, even as we struggled to make a door sized oiling bath. (Biggest door first!)

For things that can’t be soaked, there is the old wisdom to oil “once-a-day for a week, once-a-week for a month and once-a-month for a year”