I was swapping notes with acouple of London trained finishers last week and mentioned to one that in the past I have sometimes finsished stocks after filling the grain prior to putting on the oil finish and that sometimes i have not bothered with the initial grain filler but had better results without it.

His reaction was interesting - "Good - so you learned that". He went on to say that when rubbing off the oil with a cloth between coats, because you have to rub hard, a lot of normal grain fillers will be lifted out anyway.

You can fill the grain with oil finish if you are careful to build up very thin coats, alow plenty of drying time and cut back the finish with fine wire wool from time to time. Rotten stone palmed in when the finish is nearing an end result will help.

I find I get better colour from alkanet root steeped in raw linseed for several months - rather than using it in alcohol or turpentine, which dilutes it too much in my experience.

The finish I am using at the moment with best results is with turpentine rather than terebine as a drier and raw rather than boiled linseed oil. I have two other batches a waiting a trial and Salopian has another I made - I'll be interested in the results of that one.

A friend has a field full of bee hives - I have asked her for some pure bees' wax in blocks to try in a recipe for finishing oil.

All good fun.