Hey everyone! I'm about to refinish some vintage walnut dressers I inherited, and I've got some materials ready to go. I have linseed oil, tung oil, and blocks of beeswax. I'm thinking of using the beeswax to polish, maybe mixing it with one of the oils to create a paste? My main question is this: should I just use a mix of oil and beeswax for finishing, or do I need to do a few layers of pure oil first before applying the wax? Also, how can I tell how many layers of oil are necessary? Any tips would be really appreciated!
5 Answers
The best approach is to use the oil first and then finish with paste wax. Here’s what I usually do with linseed oil: put on a coat, wait about 10 minutes to check how much is left on the wood, and if there's not too much, I'll add another coat. Keep doing this until there’s a good amount of oil on the surface, then wipe off the excess. After that, I apply the paste wax, leave it until it's a little tacky (around 10 minutes should do), and then buff it off. This process should work similarly with tung oil, as long as it doesn’t have weird additives.
If you're unsure, it might be easier just to grab a can of tung oil finish and apply a few coats directly. That way, there's no mixing involved, and you avoid any guesswork!
You definitely shouldn't mix those oils with the wax! Linseed and tung oils are drying oils that form a film on wood. Mixing wax with them could ruin their qualities, leading to a sticky mess over time. Normally you’d use mineral oil to mix with wax for a paste.
Nice tip! I usually do something similar with linseed oil, but I always wait a bit before buffing. Seems like a solid method.