On May 4, 11:35 am, "SonomaProducts.com" wrote:

If you use Boiled Linseed Oil as suggested or
any other oil BE SURE it is pure and does not have any "Dries" in it.
These are heavy metal and very toxic.

Just to expand on Sonoma's post....

DO NOT use Boiled Linseed Oil on any food surface. Ever. BLO is
dries out quickly due to the introduction of the aforementioned
chemical driers which are indeed quite poisonous.

However, UNlike most of today's resin finishes which are toxic when
wet or uncured, then food safe when cured, the poison component does
not go away when the resins cure. Think of the old oil based paints
with lead in them. The paint can be dry for decades and the inert
metals in the finish are as deadly as they day they were manufactured.

There is no such thing as "PURE" BLO. It doesn't exist.

The misnomer of "boiled linseed oil" is a myth itself. IIRC, the
"boiling process" is the introduction of metal salts in the mixing
vat.

"Boiled" Linseed Oil is manufactured by taking linseed oil and adding
metallic driers to the oil itself, in the same fashion we used to add
Japan Drier (again, nothing to do with Japan) to oil based (sometimes
linseed/tung oil) paints.

Without metallic driers, the oil is simply "linseed oil" or "raw
linseed oil". It takes weeks or months to simply dry a bit. But
without driers, the raw stuff is actually edible. Outside of making
bread, I am not sure what the linseed oil/flaxseed oil is actually
good for in normal use.

"Boiled linseed oil" came about as a quick fix for someone that wanted
an oil finish without the time or trouble involved.

Here's something from Russ Fairfield. Not a professional, but
knowledgeable:

http://www.woodcentral.com/russ/finish6.shtml

Robert