There is an excellent article and instructions on traditional oil finishing in a Steven Dodd Hughes article in a Shooting Sportsman article from about maybe 18 months ago. SDH interviewed Paul Hodgins on his stock finishing techniques and materials; I would highly recommend the article,
The rubbing oil, and I use raw linseed also, is basically used to rub off the partially hardened oil on the surface of the wood, leaving the rest to fill the pores. Both the Clive Lemmon kits, and Warthog kits sold by Galazan are excellent and contain the linseed oil, hardener and rubbing oils, and an excellent finish may obtained with these.
On the subject of linseed oils, a little experiment should be informative. Using the hardener, try a smear on a piece of glass or steel using both raw linseed and boiled oil, mixed with the hardener and see how long the drying times are. And try the test with the Artist's linseed oil also. It may change some opinions of the artist's oil.
Stock finishing is and has always been mostly technique. You have to develope a technique that gives the results you wish. Even trying the same materials and technique of others seems to give me differing results.
Dennis Potter
