Japan Dryers

[unclej]

besides guitars i do a lot of wood turning and sculpting and i use a home brew oil finish that i mix up a quart at a time. i've used japan dryers backwhen i was remodeling and building custom cabinets but never in an oil finish. i read a recent thread on how it would help speed the cure time of an oil finish so i'd like to give it a try.

do any of you know if adding it to a quart would effect it's shelf life as long as the container was sealed tightly? logic tells me that it would be fine but i'd like to see if any of you have had any experience with it...i hate to waste stuff.

[unclej]

well, i finally found enough time to do a little research and it appear (not confirmed yet) that it works by catalytic reaction so it would probably turn a quart of oil finish into a big glob of alien poo. i'm going to do a little experiment with it but based on the overwhelming response to this question i'm assuming that it's not a pressing issue to you all so i'm keeping the results to myself..pppllltttt!

[Doc]

Unclej,

To keep your jappaned oil form turning into a mass of goo get a can of nirtogen gas. A lot of the mail order suppliers to the furniture guys sell it. I can't remember the exact name but I think that Garrett Wade Co sells one in their finishes section. You shoot it in the can and immediately cap it and your finish will be there when the aliens are doing their archaeology.

I'm not sure how much you're going to speed up your cure time with this treatment. You might look at some of the books and articles by Sam Maloof, Tage Frid and James Krenov. They are some of the deans of late 20th century contemporary furniture desing and construction and all shared a lack of interest in complicated finishing techniques. They all had a quick and dirty modified oil concoction that they used to avoid guns and long drawn out processes.

[unclej]

thanks doc..my recipe started from an article by one of those gentlemen..don't remember which..he called it LTV..equal parts of linseed oil, turpentine and varnish. over the years i modified it a good bit..turpentine didn't dry nearly fast enough so i replaced it with regular paint thinner. poly seemed to give better protection so i replaced the varnish with it. so now it's poly and thinner and linseed oil.

i've never really had a problem with drying times on the finish but you know how you've always got to be looking for a way to improve the mousetrap so i thought i'd experiment with the japan dryers and have actually decided to just add it to small useable batches instead of adding it to the big batch.