something i've been meaning to test (linseed oil products)

[Neal Clayton]

as i'm sure others in here are familiar with, and a topic that has come up more than its share of times....

old style linseed based coatings last longer than new coatings by a pretty wide margin. especially when it comes to linseed oil/white lead paints. anyone who's been around old buildings has surely seen old windows and doors and siding for instance, which still has its original paint that hasn't failed after 100+ years. it gets chalky and ugly, but it doesn't fall off and it doesn't trap moisture or allow rot.

well, there are a few paint makers that still make traditional paints, mainly for historic restoration projects in europe (which is a much bigger industry there than here). they can legally buy white lead paints for certain landmark projects, and there are alternatives with titanium oxides, zinc oxides, and iron oxides for public use.

at least one has started selling paints here, a company from sweden named allback paints. http://www.linoljeprodukter.se/eng/index.php. MSDS for their paints are here...http://www.linoljeprodukter.se/eng/sdb.php

since they are in the window/door restoration business there they also sell glazing putties and sealers as well, specifically a BLO product that they claim to be superior to chemically modified BLO alternatives here. not sure if there's any truth to that or not, i'm more concerned with the paint.

the basic differences for those who haven't been around old lead paints are...

new paints are a film finish, as everyone i'm assuming is familiar with. the primer soaks into the wood, but the paint itself is simply a film over the primer. when the paint fails, it separates from the surface, so you wind up with wood exposure at some point, due to the failure of the paint film.

old linseed/lead paints were more like stains. they were put on wood without primer, and meant to penetrate into the surface of the lumber, thus they are semi-permanent. they're difficult to remove even after many decades because they maintain a very strong adhesion to the surface they were applied to, since they're not separated from that surface by a primer. additionally, they are more readily dissolved by their solvent after they've cured. so rather than having to remove loose paint and repaint after a decade or two, a new coat of linseed oil every now and then can effectively maintain an old lead paint coating indefinitely. that's why you see 100+ year old buildings with their original lead paint on the outside that's in pretty decent shape consdering the age of the coating.

the primary difference that interests me, as mentioned above, is they fail differently and old lead paints failed in a preferable way. people simply don't maintain paint like they should these days, or anything else for that matter, and with a film over primer style paint, the failure of paint leaves wood exposed directly to the elements, and can trap moisture beneath the remaining paint/primer. neglected lead paint takes much longer to fail, and never fails as badly as modern paints do even when neglected. the coating is still intact in most cases, it just looks bad .

the catch (there always is one, isn't there?)...we all know how long linseed oil takes to dry. so this will likely be a slow drying product. there's also cost, at least with the allback stuff, it costs about twice as much as premium exterior oil paints we get from SW and Ben Moore and such. on the other hand, if anyone's ever seen an artist paint with a lead paint, you probably noticed that it seems to spread alot thinner. i'm assuming the same may apply here. might not be that big of a cost difference with that in mind.

either way, i've been meaning to order some of the allback company's samples and mess around with them, it's gotten quite a bit of activity lately on the website owned by a guy named john leeke who consults/educates folks concerning historic restoration in and around new england. i was reading around his forums this evening with my checkbook in my pocket so got around to ordering some, i got a sample color and a can of their BLO on the way. will post some pictures and initial impressions next week when they come in.

since i build traditional windows it's of interest to me for those, but besides that nothing would make me happier than to find an alternative to the ever cheaper and less durable paint that we seem to be winding up with here in the states, with new VOC requirements now making them even worse than they already were.