Is the cedar ruining my finish?

[Larry Crim]

I built a blanket chest a few months back and lined it with cedar, the kind you get at lowes for closets and such. I finished the cherry with BLO and then about 4 to 5 coats general clear oil finish. It was all fine till a few days ago I opened it and the inside of the lid is tacky and hazy, the smell of the cedar was real strong, is it possible the cedar fumes are making the finish tacky?

[Howard Acheson]

Yes, aromatic cedar fumes will soften oil based finishes whether the finish is applied to the cedar or to another wood.

Use a chemical stripper to remove the oil finish from the inside of the top. Then apply either a shellac or a waterborne finish.

For the future, never apply an oil based finish on the inside of a box or carcase that will contain cloth or clothing. Oil based finishes off-gas almost forever and the odor will permeate the cloth items. Either don't finish the inside or use shellac or a waterborne finish.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

What Howard said.

Two good reasons not to use an oil finish inside a construction. If you don't want a varnish smell be prepared to wait a long long time. I built a small chest using a wood that smelled and wanted to kill the odor so sealed it with an oil based finish. I put it in a drying oven for about a day and a half and even that didn't get rid of the smell.

Also in the case of cedar the oils soften the oil finish and make a mess. I build a lot of cedar chests and on the first ones I put an oil based finish on the box and included where the lid contacted the top of the box. I ended up using a putty knife to scrape off the resulting goo. It's a mystery to me why the finish doesn't get tacky on the outside....the oils are in contact with the oil based finish there also. Anyway, use either a waterborne finish or better yet shellac as a base coat when dealing with cedar so you won't have to worry about it.

[Ron Bontz]

No offense but I am glad to see I am not the only person to make that mistake. In my case it was inside an arched top oak/cedar chest. It crinkled and softened the poly finish. It eventually hardened again but stayed crinkled. Sure sure I meant to do that. (Lie,Lie). Oddly enough it did it from the level of the cedar up. Not down. Best of luck.

[Larry Crim]

Thanks guys that's why I love this forum, Live and learn, could have been worse at least it's only the underside of the lid. Finishing has always been my week side with WW.
larry