Whether garden or house, wood is a popular building material. If it is used outdoors, however, it requires a certain protection from wind, weather and sun. If there is no other coating, wood care oil is a good alternative. In the following you will find out what types there are and how they are to be used.
What is wood care oil?
To understand the different types of oil and their application, it is first important to know the general properties of wood care oils:
- Does not form layers on the surface
- As a result, no additional protection against mechanical abrasion, wear and tear, etc.
- Penetrates into the pores of the wood and saturates the upper layer of wood
- Maintains breathability and diffusion openness
- Do not impair the feel or surface finish
- Depending on the type of oil, optical changes, e.g. darkening and color, are possible
The ingredients
Generally speaking, wood care oil consists of up to four ingredients:
- binder
- Solvent
- Additives
- Pigments
The area of additives and pigments in particular is very variable and can be omitted entirely. The focus, on the other hand, is primarily on the binding agent, i.e. the substance that remains in the wood pores after complete drying and has the protective effect.
The binders
Two different groups of substances have established themselves as common binders:
- Vegetable oils in natural form, e.g. B. Linseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, or tall oil
- Modified oil, so-called alkyd resin, mostly based on linseed oil or oil mixtures
Both oil groups are comparable in their protective effect, so that
From a technical point of view, there is no notable difference from the pure selection of the "crude oil" on which the wood care oil is based. Most of the time, a product's special orientation is only achieved in the entirety of all ingredients, i.e. the oil combinations and the additives.The solvents
Next, let's look at the common types of solvents. Generally speaking, they are required in wood care oil in order to make the generally viscous oils used as binders workable at all. For outdoor use, they can be described as completely uncritical, since evaporated solvents can easily evaporate and do not lead to any enrichment of the ambient air.
In combination with natural oils, linseed oil varnish is usually used. Despite its use as a solvent, it is not a volatile substance, but dries in a comparatively long time. Modified oils, on the other hand, are usually combined with isoparaffins or gasoline. These real solvents evaporate relatively quickly after processing and thus enable the oiled surface to be used quickly. In very rare cases, however, water is also found as a solvent, these products hardly appearing in the bulk of the products available on the market.
The solvent proportions
- Solvent-free oils: almost 0%, but never completely absent, as it is also necessary for drying additives
- Other care oils: up to shares of 40 to 60%
- Comparison: Paints up to 80% !!
ATTENTION:
Aliphatic / aromatic hydrocarbons are often found as solvents, especially for products of unclear origin. However, they are known to be hazardous to health and should therefore be avoided.Additives
If additives are added to the wood oil, these are substances that change various aspects:
- Drying accelerator
- Additives for a matt or glossy look
- Additives to create a protective film on the surface that does not exist with oil
The drying
Wood care oil is usually dried oxidatively. This means that the molecules of the oil react with the oxygen in the air and create long-chain compounds - they harden. Therefore, the term hard oil is often used for oil products, although there is ultimately no difference between care oils with the name and oils without this name affix. Usually modified oils in particular are added to drying accelerators, although natural oils are also increasingly using them in order to survive on the market. The resulting drying times are usually in the following ranges:
- With accelerating additives: approx. 24 to 48 hours
- Without accelerator: 1 to 3 weeks
The protective film - hard wax oil
The most common and best recognizable additive for wood care oils is wax. Many of these products are available as hard wax oils and with similar names. The wax included is intended to replace the protective film that actually does not exist with oil on the wood surface. While the care oil penetrates deep into the pores of the wood, the wax settles on the wood as a slightly shiny layer Wood and at least to a certain extent replaces the protective effect that is normally produced by varnishes or glazes will. However, the layer formation of the wax never comes close to lacquer or glaze and has to be renewed regularly due to the significantly lower durability.
TIP: If you want to give your wood a waxed look, hard wax oil is a good variant that allows it to be processed in a cold state. In its pure form, however, wax can usually only be processed when it is heated.
Pigments
Many care oils are provided with product names such as "Teak Oil", "Bangkirai Oil" or the like. Even if one could initially assume that these are oil formulations specially created for these types of wood it is ultimately only about the pigmentation that is found in the wood species that give it its name oriented. Unpigmented oil is usually colorless or only slightly colored. This is how linseed oil is made
for example a slight yellow tinge. Only through the addition of coloring agents are the oils able to emphasize the natural wood tone of a type of wood or to give other types of wood the appearance of a desired wood. It is not uncommon, for example, for terraces or garden furniture to use cheaper woods, which are then "upgraded" by the use of teak oil.The right oil selection
With this knowledge of the differences between the individual wood care oils, you can easily choose the right oil for your own needs from the barely manageable range of the specialist market. The following questions should be kept in mind:
- Time required: Is there a waiting time or oil with drying accelerators?
- Surface: film-forming hard wax oil, or pure care oil?
- Optics: only care effect desired, or emphasis or Change in color due to pigmented oils?
- Gut feeling: Natural oil or "synthetic" alkyd resin?
The processing
Once you have decided on a wood care oil, the next step is processing. It is the same for all types of oil, so that the application can be described universally here:
- Application of an oil film to the wood with a brush or cloth
- Wait for the exposure time according to the manufacturer's instructions
- Rub any remaining oil on the surface with a cloth and wipe off any excess
ATTENTION: If you rely on pure or almost pure linseed oil for wood care, you should soak the cloth used after completing the work and seal it airtight in a plastic bag. The massive vapors of the linseed oil residues in the rag can ignite under favorable conditions (strong sunlight etc.) on contact with atmospheric oxygen! On the other hand, there is no danger whatsoever for the oil applied to the wood surface.
Common mistakes
Although the processing of wood care oils is very simple, elementary mistakes are made again and again, which mainly affect the subsequent appearance of the surface:
- Too little oil on the wood, resulting in stains from dried-out areas with less oil
- Oil not rubbed and wiped off, as a result, the surface will be stained by remaining oil droplets
- Oiled surfaces walked on too early: stains and streaks from dirt carried in, as well as impairment of garden paths, etc. possible with care oil on the shoes (especially absorbent types of stone)
