I was asked in a PM to update our experience with Allback linseed oil paint. We have not used it long enough to draw any conclusions. There are some observations I can share.

The combination of raw, boiled, and finally paint seems to give very good penetration into the wood and shows great promise for extending the life of older wood. The red paint itself does not resist sunlight very well, but seems to be lasting well with the linseed oil varnish as a top coat. This rejuvenated the faded paint.

We are currently experimenting with using boiled linseed oil on repaint jobs, followed by our acrylic enamel paint. The ae paint has shown to maintain its color better than any other paint we have used so far. It is very compatible with the plastic siding that is on some of the cars, and this combination is probably where we are headed. In the meantime, we are using the linseed oil to stretch out the life of existing wood as long as possible.

Along with other odd things, we get involved in insurance investigations on claims that involve structural failures and I also have an employee that's a fire inspector.

Got one in here with a fire 'supposedly' caused by a container of linseed oil blowing off the container top and vaporizing and soaking adjacent fiber material, and then that fiber material going into spontaneous combustion and catching the shop on fire. Sprinklers got it and prevented a real disaster, but it's a chicken and egg on did the fire from an unknown source blow the oil or did the container expand and blow and start the fire with the linseed oil vapor ignition on adjacent material. Still not sure. Can't find any other start point for the fire except in the immediate area of the linseed oil container.

I had absolutely no idea that linseed oil was capable of spontaneous combustion during oxidation in open air. The major culprit appears to be rags, application pads, etc that it would be soaked into - not wood.

I've used linseed oil all my life for wood staining and paid no particular attention to either the storage of it or any adjacent materials, rags, etc. The more we look at this the more it actually seems possible, so do your own research and take appropriate measures. If it's a linseed oil base paint it may be different, but if you've got the actual oil on hand for thinning (which I bet a lot do) and have rags, etc. for cleanup you may look at that situation entirely differently if you do some reading and research.

Here's an ABC news clip on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yq6VW-c2Ts

Thanks for the update Linn.

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum is planning on the use of the Allback Linseed Oil Paint for the sealing of the roofing canvas on our cars. We were much concerned about the "more modern" alternatives to our traditional methods with regard to our roofs.

We are not currently planning its use for car bodies, but will be very interested in hearing your future observations on the product performance.

Dave Wilson
Baltimore Streetcar Museum.

Linseed oil can be dangerous. A hardware store burned after rags used to wipe up spilled linseed oil were placed in a trash can that caught fire from spontanous combustion.

From my wood boat owning days the best wood preservative was copper napthanate covered with Dulux paint. It wouldn't rot and nothing would eat it.

Just a reminder that, as Brandon Zeigler explained in a Mon May 13, 2013 post, Strasburg does not use the stuff you can buy at your local hardware store - that 'Boiled Linseed Oil' is "actually raw oil that has had solvents and chemical driers added to simulate some of the properties of boiled oil at a fraction of the cost."



In 1913, Jack London's dream house burned down right before he was going to move in. According to the California Parks' brochure for Jack Londson Stae Historic Park (PDF), "In 1995 a group of forensic fire experts visited the site, concluding that the fire had resulted from spontaneous combustion in a pile of linseed oil-soaked rags left by workers."

Here's an article about that investigation: Wolf House Fire Findings

My father was a hardwood lumberman all his life and ran a sawmill, and his own hobby was fine woodworking - not trains. He made some rather exquisite pieces, and every one of them was done in a mix of linseed oil and turpentine (hand rubbed in with soft cotton rags!). They've never mildewed, discolored or otherwise lost their beauty. But I remember the sticky cotton rags scattered all over the basement wood shop and other than the fact it was usually 50 degrees in there, I have absolutely no idea how we never burned the house down given what I now know.

Hadn't seen that other thread, are you guys saying you actually 'boil your own', and that commercial 'boiled linseed oil' in the cans isn't actually boiled?

Linseed oil is a naturally polymerizing oil, and the polymerization is exothermic (produces heat). Twenty five or so years ago, Fine Homebuilding magazine had a story about a custom home that burned the night after the floors were finished, and yes, linseed oil was to blame. All those admonitions your mother gave you about not leaving "oily rags lay around, or you'll burn the house down..." were about linseed, and other polymerizing oils, not machine oil.

I've had the strange experience of watching a gallon can of epoxy almost catch fire... not linseed oil, but another resin that polymerizes with an exothermic reaction. It was coil impregnating epoxy, and some bright light decided to use it to pot re-bar in holes drilled in concrete. Mixed in that mass, within a minute is was boiling, then smoking, and at that point we got out a fire hose to cool the can down. The whole can had gone solid in about two minutes and the resulting solid cracked from thermal expansion. Linseed oil is slower acting, but given the right conditions (a pile of rags to insulate the reaction and retain the heat), it can reach ignition temperature, usually a couple hours after everyone has left.

Although not dealing with linseed oil, I've acquired an 1890s paint sample booklet for passenger cars. The colors on the samples are still bright for being over 110 years old.

Fred Heilich

Your paint sample booklet was made with lacquer-based color chips. Linseed oil-based oils and resins yellow severely in a dark environment and thus are very poor binders for color samples. Also, while linseed oil does polymerize into a solid, that solid is quite soft for the first several months and never gets hard enough to resist blocking (surfaces sticking together over time).

Linseed oil for exterior paint was an excellent binder, but it did not resist sunlight all that well. A typical linseed oil product from the 40's and 50's would last typically 8-10 years before becoming eroded or otherwise unsightly. Most paint companies dropped their pure linseed oil formulations in the early 1970's due to high cost of the oil and the availability of better synthetic resins.

When we bought our first house many years ago (a fixer upper) all the wood on the front porch was peeling paint. I burned and sanded it down to bare wood and painted/rubbed in by hand two coats of linseed oil (hardware store kind) before putting on a good oil based primer and finish coat. Last time I saw the place after about 18 years, it still had that paint on it and it still looked tight.
There are a lot of oils that shouldn't be on rags in a pile. Unless it's a in a can designed for that sort of thing and has a lid on it.

The image you used fit exactly my expression when I read the same line....

I'm more interested in what brand, and how is it working out?

How 'bout some details, Linn?

Allback is the brand of the paint. It comes from Sweden. Here is a site that sells the product here in the United States:

http://www.solventfreepaint.com

Thanks, but I was actually asking for more information on the "plastic siding" that was mentioned.