hey y'all I am James right and welcome to my shop and I need to go grab something quick hey y'all I am James right and welcome to my shop I've had a lot of people asking me about my finishing process a lot of times in videos I'll say and I apply a boiled linseed oil and paste wax finish and that's about all I say in the video and I'm kind of sorry about that but I've been meaning for a while to talk about what I actually do because I really don't want to repeat this in every single video so yeah let's kind of get into it basically my method my preferred method for most things that I handle I like to feel the wood I like to feel the the texture the grain I don't like things to be perfectly smooth and varnished I want to to feel it so I kind of stay away from most Polly's and varnishes and things like that because I prefer to feel it now on things that get a lot of wear furniture in the house the coffee table that I made a while ago I put a poly finish on that because it actually puts a coating on top that will protect protect the wood the paste wax will protect the wood a little bit but really not that much so for my hand tools in the shop and the things that I actually handle and feel very often I like to leave that porous surface I like the polished the the paste wax finish I don't want to be polished so basically the things that I generally use is number one boiled linseed oil now this is going to get a lot of people into trouble in my videos you'll often see me doing it with my bare hands and that's because I get this from a guy who makes his own and this is raw linseed oil that has been distilled down into a boiled linseed oil and it doesn't have any drying agents and there are other chemicals so it is it's safe to use with your hands and it smells fantastic or at least I think it smells fantastic now if you go to the store you're going to find boiled linseed oil um sounds like the exact same thing but it's not um in the finish in the way it works and all of its functionality it's identical I can't tell the difference the difference is that this has chemicals in it and drying agents that you really don't want to get on your hands so if you're going to go to the store and get boiled linseed oil you can do the exact same thing just make sure you have gloves on yeah this isn't as friendly so that's why I am lucky enough to find someone who makes them it makes it himself now I've thought about doing a video about making boiled linseed oil but it is a very very very dangerous process and if you get it wrong you'll have a fire on your hand and I have a friend who has the equipment and things set up to do it correctly and he does it that way sometimes the future I might do a video on it but I don't know if I really want to take on the liability yet of making your own boiled linseed oil so for right now don't try this at home don't make your own I do not suggest it it is very dangerous then the next thing I say is paste wax now this is the generic mid wax paste wax and it works great I really don't have any problem with it I kind of like it it's cheap it's if everyone can get their hands on it I kind of like this stuff and a jar like this will last me probably a good nine months to a year so it's it's a good amount of weight wax you can make your own basically this is just beeswax melted down with some other oil whether it be a tung oil or a linseed oil the other things like that and it just kind of makes it soft enough so you can work it in and basically the way this works is you rub it onto the surface and it is liquid enough either by the heat of your friction or by it just being generally liquid in a contained environment and then it will set over time and harden back up as the oil gets out of the wax it will harden into a harder surface that you get like the beeswax and so you do get a little bit of a finish on there but because it's in the pores you don't feel it as much and so that's why I like a paste wax finish another thing that I've used several times is feed and wax you can get this at most of the big-box stores and it's made with beeswax and orange oil I really like this stuff it's it's when I use as my initial finish but one of the problems with boiled linseed oil and paste wax finish is you need to reapply it occasionally and so rather than reapplying the paste wax every nine months to a year I often like to rub down a little bit of this and just kind of keep it on my hands and I really like the way it smells and it just keeps the the wood texture supple and so I occasionally like every six months or so I'll go through my shop and most of my wooden tools I'll just give it a quick rubdown with this and I love this stuff so that's very useful so onto the surface itself this is some red oak and fairly standard stuff but I like oak because you can kind of see the finish on it now you may have heard that pop when I cracked it open that's because it does condense over time especially with how the temperatures change it gives it a good seal you also know there's there's a lot of dried crud around here when you do let it dry it does get kind of pili on you so I basically just stick my fingers in and wipe it down now if you're using the boiled linseed oil from the store on use gloves but for this instance I'm just going to put it over here and basically all I'm going to do is I'm going to leave it on thick and heavy just like that and I'm going to leave it I'm going to come back in about 15 minutes and probably apply another coat and I will let it soak in until I start to see that it's no longer soaking in the wood and it's just sitting on top and that's how I know it has absorbed enough and already you can start to see some dry spots where it is starting to absorb and almost getting dry into the wood I don't know if you can see the reflection there but it's soaking up pretty fast now I put down three coats on this so far waiting about 15 minutes in between each coat and most of the time I will do that or I might do a few more it depends if it's going to be a tool that I'm using a lot I might not put as much on there just because I'm going to be handling it my hand oils will get into it but for this sake I'm just going to kind of show you my average tool like my chisel rack I put on three coats let them dry in and then I come back with a rag and just kind of wipe the surface down get rid of the boiled linseed oil now you do want to be careful with rags that have these on there if you want them up and throw them in the trash can they do have a tendency to combust because they will generate a little bit of heat and if enough of that heat gets up then the cloth will actually light on fire I will lay it out flat on the concrete floor and just let it dry or I will put it in a jar of water just to make sure but then I'll come through with my paste wax and I just kind of work it out onto my fingers and smear it into the surface and I want to kind of leave it thick and heavy right now so there's a salad surface of liquid wax on top of it and I'm just trying to kind of rub it in with my hand create a little bit of friction with my hand sometimes I'll use a little bit of steel wool although I just kind of like using my hand it's a little faster and I just work it into the grain as best as I can and I'll let that sit for a little bit so then after letting it sit to basically for about five minutes or so I'll come in with my fingers and wipe off as much as I can and I'll just kind of try to dry out the surface with my hand I don't use a towel because I don't want to pull off too much while it's still wet but I want to make sure that the wax stays in the pores I don't want to pull it out of the pores and I'm going to let this sit for about 15 to 20 minutes I don't want to let this sit for like more than an hour otherwise it might actually get hard and become difficult to buff but it's not going to be a huge issue it just takes a little bit more elbow grease then now sometimes if I'm actually in a rush I will skip that last where I'm trying to take it off with my hand and just leave it on there for like 30 or 40 minutes maybe as much as an hour because the thicker the thicker the surface is the longer it will take to dry and you're basically just going until it feels like like beeswax on top and it's dried out most of it and any of the rest of the oil has kind of seeped into the wood or evaporated and then I'll come in with an old sock and buff it and the sock does two things number one it picks up a little bit of the excess that's on there but number two it kind of buffs everything smooth and make sure that you get a nice sheen on it now this is not going to give you a reflective finished surface like you're expecting with most Polly's and lacquers this is actually just going to give you the tone of the wood and it's going to fill all those pores so you're not getting dirt and junk into it and that's why I kind of like it you still get to feel the grain you get to feel the wood and it doesn't look like much as on there I like that for the tools that I'm going to be handling I don't like that as much for furniture and things like that so just to reiterate boiled linseed oil or tung oil or other oils like that they're not going to give you a film protective finish or that shiny finish that you're expecting they're going to give you a nice clean looking finish now there are other ways of rubbing it out that you can use it some people use like this this thing that looks like a little broom that you can actually get a really nice shine on it with your waxes but it's it that's not for me I like it for the things that I handle a lot like my planes that I make my mallets anything with a wooden handle I absolutely love this finish on it it feels good in my hand especially for the plane plane handles this is the finish I really like for that for furniture and other things like that they're going to get a lot of use and a lot of rubbing on them yeah I don't that's that's that's not what this is for that's for your Polly's and things of that nature so this is what I like to use so whenever you hear me say I use a boiled linseed oil and paste wax finish it's just a few coats of this to let it soak into the wood and let the the wood take up as much oil that's going to take and then throw some paste wax on top let it kind of harden and then buff it out and you get a really nice finish that looks decent but also gives you that a little bit of durability from the dirt but you can feel the wood and it's something that is is good in your hand so I hope you like this video is one I've been wanting to do for a while and I hope I did it justice if you still have questions please let me know in the comments below I would love to hear your questions and who knows I might end up doing another video on other types of finishes if you did like this video feel free to check out one of my others you might find something there you like I want to say a huge thank you to the patrons on patreon one of the reasons why I put this video out this time is one of the the patrons asked me about it and so it kind of gave me the push to put the video out here so thank you for that push and hopefully we'll be seeing some other videos from some things that they've suggested so if you want to get in on that group feel free to check out my patreon page and a lot of fun things going on there I try to put a lot of behind-the-scenes video videos and pictures and things like that in there and show some other things in the shop that other people don't get to see if you did like the video please hit like and think about subscribing and until next time have a wonderful day