"Bill" wrote in message
...
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
Mary Fisher wrote:
"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 6 Sep, 21:51, S Viemeister wrote:

Why would you not use linseed oil?
Mostly because it yellows with age. Not too bad on fumed oak, but a
disaster on pale wood.

I wondered why you'd want to colour it at all ("I begin by
ammonia fuming it (dead easy) to a mid-brown."
Mary
I guess you never have used lipstick, hair dye or nail varnish, Mary..

LOL! Very, very rarely.

And your house is all bare natural colored plaster walls

It might well have been uncoloUred had it not had wallpaper when we moved
in - which we painted white.

And you dress in undyed beigey natural fabrics..

Whatever I get from the charity shops.

and drive an unpainted car or bicycle.

The bike was green when I acquired it, the car was blue when we bought it
second hand. It hasn't been touched up where the paint has gone.

What are you trying to prove?

The difference is that if the old garden gate is blistered and faded a lick
of paint wouldn't do any harm. But one wouldn't paint a lily or rose. I've
never stained timber for any purpose - even for 'period authenticity' - Andy
probably knows that.

But as a natural philistine you wouldn't.

Sorry, Bill, I only see np's posts when they're included in someone else's -
someone I'm prepared to read.

Hmmm. On the boat, where it has been exposed to sun and sea for over 20
years, it turned a nice yellowey colour. But because of the constant
battle between u/v and epoxy, we have now painted over almost all the
external wood.

All this talk of fuming ammonia sounds scary, but I'll look it up.

It was a fashion. Andy's quite right.

I've also been scouring the internet without finding where to buy "Patina"
near Liverpool. I seem to spend my life ringing suppliers and asking for
things they have never heard of and I don't know the name of. (Last year
it was or turned out to be "sex bolts" - for them I had to put a pic of
the old ones on Picasa and ask what they were called).

Sex bolts? Tell us more.

I think I'd be happy with light oak colour. She doesn't know!!. My gut
feeling is that oak should look natural, and if I wanted a darker wood,
I'd start from mahogany,

Same here. I think the same about any timber. In my youth there was 'light
oak', 'medium oak' and 'dark (or Jacobean) oak'. Very little light oak was
seen and the result was dark, dim rooms which needed atificial lighting even
during the day. I inherited a hanging light fitting in 'dark oak' from a
beloved godmother and the hand-made-by-my-uncle fire surround had also been
stained or varnished in 'dark oak'. I insisted that they wee both scraped
and sanded until they were light - they look wonderful. And Dr Charles
Kightley, an historian, period house and furniture restorer came one day and
danced in the room in glee admiring the fire surround - perfect for its time
(1937).

We don't use mahogany - it's exotic rather than native - but horses for
courses.

See above about the garden gate and flowers - cf young and old aged skin :-)

Mary