Antique drills for hand hewn beams

J. Schwiebert

Well-known Member
My dad had some of those and he made make new handles for them. I guess now I would like to sand those handles down. After that what should I use to finish them to make them look nice. The handles are either Maple or Hickory or maybe a few of each if I remember right. Thanks for any good answers. J.
 
Boiled linseed oil would be the traditional choice--thin the first 50/50 with turpentine (not essential but it gives better penetration) and rub with 0000 steel wool between coats and rubbing them in well with your hand. Half a dozen coats with a day's dry time between them will give a deep, lasting finish that's easily renewable, and a coat of beeswax or similar on top will take a nice polish if desired. Of course, Tung or Danish oil would also work, but most of my working tools get boiled linseed oil.
 
Shellac, that's what would have been on wood work in the 1800s up into the early part of the 1900s. I've seen those drills my dad has a few he got out of an old farm house or barn. They are mint and the finish is Amber to golden which makes me think they were shellac. Tounge and or linseed oil turns wood black. I would buy a quart of shellac , zinnser makes one. I used to play with them when I was a kid I new them well. He has a tool chest of tools from that era .
 
B.D., neither tung oil nor linseed oil "turns wood black". What you've seen was mildew growing where they weren't properly wiped down, left like a surface finish, which they are not. Both are traditional furniture finishes.

As is shellac, but it needs to be fresh. Serious users buy flakes and mix their own, also simple then to create the desired color. When buying a pre-mixed can, important to check the date on the label. Not a very popular item due to its not being very water resistant, and stores don't have much turnover. One primary redeeming feature is that it's very easy to touch up as the alcohol in new shellac will soften an old finish enough that the new coat becomes part of it, inseparable.

I was a house guest recently where the host's dining table had a finish problem. No need to get out the alcohol to test for shellac, when the finish never sets up hard, it was old shellac that her refinisher didn't know enough to avoid. Unfortunately too far away for me to solve her problem with fresh shellac. But at least she now knows what she's looking for.

Tool handles mostly got treated with whatever was at hand, and everything worked. My preference is boiled linseed oil with a squirt of polyurethane added. I don't display tools, I use them. J. Schwiebert should use whatever pleases his eye best. The basic choices are surface finish or penetrating oil finish.
 
I use shellac. Some of the old two man saws had some nice handles which I take apart and spin in my lathe to clean up.
 
Your right the reason tung and linseed oil make stuff turn black is because they promote the growth of mold and mildew the oil makes a cozy bed for it. I can always tell when someone has used a product that contains tung or linseed oil when I quote log cabins or decks. note these are outside and they are turn black. I am guessing the old drill I use to play with got wet a time or too and would be black if it was oils. The look of the old handle to me was that of shallac like a nole post in and old house the way it was worn. If you or anyone is using it tung or linseed oil and or products that contain them they can spontaneously combust. It's really no joke I had it happen with some stain rags in the back of a truck once. Also when you apply those products like in the case with Johnny Cashew old they will burn like tinder
 
Yup, oily rags are a fire hazard. No reason to blame the product for that, I don't know of any oil that won't burn. All that's necessary is to spread rags out on a non-combustible surface until they turn hard.

I've used gallons of tung and boiled linseed oil outside. No black mildew in our humid climate. Water is not a problem. What you saw was improper application. Just like the table I encountered was improper shellac use. Nothing wrong with the finishes, only the finisher.
 
I owned a large woodworking business and when we restored wood handles there was two choice we found best.

It always depended on the wood maple,oak, hickory, ash we would use varnish 80% of the time. There was a few exceptions to this read the second choice which we sometimes used on the ones we already mentioned.

The second choice was if it was any curly maple, curly cherry and always rosewood we would use lacquer. We always sprayed the lacquer in our spray booth. Steel wool many times and sometimes would use a pice of old cleaned metal to rub over finish to give it more of burnished aged look but still a great finish.
 

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