Holkhams - how to optimise drying time?

[worms]

I've just painted a door with Holkham's linseed paint. I've used it outside before but this is my first try indoors. It's the bathroom door (and the only bathroom/WC in the house), so I have chosen a time when I have a few days with only myself in the house to give it time to dry before putting handle and lock back on. I've put on the first coat (very, very thin) and it looks like it will need two more.

It all needs to be finished and completely dry by Friday night, so how do I optimise drying time between coats? Heat? Put the dehumidifier in there? 12 hours on from applying the first coat and it hasn't even moved on from wet to tacky. I had been hoping to do coat 2 tonight and coat 3 on Wednesday morning but that now looks optimistic, perhaps I will need to stop after two coats to give it long enough to dry.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Sure someone with experience of this paint will come along and help you out worms. I've only ever done trial panels in the workshop, and that was high summer and they dried quickly. I'd be tempted to put a fan heater at some distance from the door and open a window or two. But I'm reluctant to say to do that though- might be worth phoning the helpful people at Holkams?

I've really noticed the difference in drying time betwen summer and now with chalky distemper paints. In high summer,it was drying as I painted. Now, it's still not dry after 12 hours!

 

[Feltwell]

Sorry Worms - time is the only factor I've found to make that stuff dry! Extra extra thin coats with 48 hours between them, I know heat should make a difference but I've never found that it does - it seems to take 24 hours to be "mostly dry but still a bit tacky", and 48 to be "dry but maybe a bit soft, still OK for another coat", regardless of if it is summer or winter!

I'm painting my new driveway gates in the garage at the moment - 4 coats on one side, turn over then do the other side, it's taking forever!

Can't you put 2 coats on then leave it until next week to do the 3rd?

Sorry to heap further misery on you - you may need 4 coats. I've found that sometime you can get away with 3, but most of the time it needs 4.......

Don't be tempted to try a thicker coat - it really, really doesn't work, take it from one who's tried!

 

[biffvernon]

Yeah, like wot feltwell said.

 

[worms]

Sorry Worms - time is the only factor I've found to make that stuff dry!

Well, I guess that is about right, using it outside it has normally had a couple of days between coats and you don't really notice the between times.

Can't you put 2 coats on then leave it until next week to do the 3rd?

Well, wife and daughters are back on Friday, so the bathroom door needs to be back to normal working order! I am resigned to it only getting two coats now - it will still be better than it was!

it seems to take 24 hours to be "mostly dry but still a bit tacky"

I'm 29 hours in and it is less wet, but I'd say a long way off tacky! It has had the dehumidifier blowing warm air across it all day - not sure if it has helped, but I can't see it doing any harm!

I'll do the second coat in the morning and then assess Wednesday night for whether to risk a third coat this week.

 

[Feltwell]

Well, wife and daughters are back on Friday, so the bathroom door needs to be back to normal working order!

My family had to put up with a dust sheet pinned over the doorway whilst the door was painted safely down in the cellar.

It has had the dehumidifier blowing warm air across it all day - not sure if it has helped, but I can't see it doing any harm!

Erm - it will if it blows any bits of fluff onto your wet paint. I'm fighting a losing battle with birch tree seeds blowing under the doors into my garage and onto my newly painted gates.....

Yeah, like wot feltwell said.

Respec', init!

Or something like that anyway.

 

[Flyfisher]

I've not used it myself but I can imagine that attempts to artificially speed up the drying would only have the effect of drying the surface and thus slowing the drying out of the underlying paint. But I defer to the experts who have actually used the stuff.

 

[biffvernon]

Linseed oil paint 'dries' not by drying but by polymerization. This involves absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere, which then link short chain polymers into much longer chain polymers, transforming liquid to solid. Since there is plenty of oxygen in the air, I doubt that a fan would make any difference. The reaction is probably temperature dependent so warming it may help.

Recently I left a newly painted piece, which I wanted to get dried as quickly as possible, out in the sunshine in the hope that UV would help catalyse the reaction. It might have worked but I didn't have a control so experimental results are just a hunch.

 

[Lime]

Linseed oil paint 'dries' not by drying but by polymerization. This involves absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere, which then link short chain polymers into much longer chain polymers, transforming liquid to solid..

And for that reason I think it is not a good idea to paint over tacky paint, i.e. before it is properly dry.

 

[worms]

Just to add a post-script to this. At 38 hours the paint was tacky and I gave it a second coat. The second coat has given good coverage and has dried much quicker than the first (tacky with some dryish spots after 14 hours) - the paint seemed thicker too, so perhaps the stirring wasn't right for the first coat. Its an old door and because I am painting white on top of previous layers of white, the two coats look like they will suffice. I've got another 48 hours for it to finish drying and get the lock etc back on, so panic over!

 

[Keith Bowman]

.......... Its an old door and because I am painting white on top of previous layers of white.........

But I thought the whole point of the linseed oil paint was that you had to put it onto bare wood? Unless, presumably, the previous paint was also linseed oil paint? Perhaps that explains the slow drying time?

 

[biffvernon]

That's part of but not the whole point.

 

[Feltwell]

You can put it on what you want.

If it's external wood then it's supposed to be best to strip back to bare wood to get the benefits of linseed paint in keeping the wood in good condition for longer.

Inside, I can't see the advantage of bothering with the stripping of existing paint. You'd use linseed paint if you like to use it - it smells nice, environmentally is good, is good to work with and I think gives a nice finish. Takes ages to dry though!

I would have thought that not stripping old paint off first would cause the first coat of linseed paint to take longer to dry, but beyond that I doubt it matters too much.

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

After initial enthusiasm for linseed paint I've pretty much given up on the stuff now. Yes, it's 'green', and coverage is great, but the very long drying time is impractical for many projects. I've also been dissapointed with the durability of the finish when used externally - a nice glossy dark green gate weathered to a matt finish in a couple of months, and has since become much paler. The final straw came the other day when I brushed against it and noticed the colour coming off on my hand - this after a week of continual dampness & rain. Sorry Holkham, the product just cannae take it up here in the soggy north west. So the search for the ideal coating continues....

Why you would use the stuff internally I can't imagine. But then I'm a fan of (whisper) acrylic for internal woodwork. Which is another discussion altogether.

 

[biffvernon]

A couple of years ago I painted linseed oil paint on some new seaward facing woodwork on our beach hut. Salt, sand, sun, about the harshest environment possible. I'll report back in a few years.

 

[Lime]

I used the two very hot spells this summer to re-do some parts of my Holkham paintwork applied 3 years ago.
The heat allowed each coat to dry properly.
I said last year that the Holkham paint still looked good on the windows but that the horizontal paintwork (wooden sills) had soot embedded in it.
I'm still pleased with the vertical paintwork. It looks good.
The wood appears to be healthy and all the wood joints remain well painted with none of the peel-back from the joints associated with modern paints.
It remains to be seen how well the reapplied horizontal paint fares this winter.

I also re-painted the stone sills with a modern paint two years ago.
(The previous coats of weathershield applied at the same time as the Holkham didn't last a year)
The modern paint (not weathershield) is coming off again and looks a mess.

 

[worms]

Sorry Holkham, the product just cannae take it up here in the soggy north west...

I'm quite happy with it outside and I am probably norther, wester and soggier! Sadly, I can't vouch for its performance in UV or heat!

 

[Feltwell]

The roofline woodwork - fascia boards, fancy gable end timbers etc - on my house were painted 5 years ago with linseed paint. They are a mixture of Victorian softwood originals (stripped back to bare wood prior to painting) and new softwood replacements.

Can't comment on the "brushing up against them" problem, for obvious reasons, but I'm very happy with the performance of the paint - especially as our neighbour - the other half of our semi - did theirs a year later with modern paint and they are starting to look tatty already. This is on a very tall 3 storey house, in quite an exposed position - and as for wet, well let's just say that Shropshire isn't England's main dairy county for nothing you know, lots of green grass here on the border with Wales.

I do agree on the "horizontal" problem though - a wooden cill I painted does look rather grimy, admittedly I haven't bothered trying to clean it! It was a cill which really I should have replaced, it had lots of old rot in it. Instead I filled it with lots (and lots!) of linseed putty - ordinary glass putty, as per Holkham's instruction - and then painted it. 4 years on and it still looks absolutely fine, whereas I am convinced from previous experience elsewhere that if a modern filler was used it would be falling apart again by now. I didn't use Holkham's own posh expensive putty, just the cheap stuff from the local glazier.

The colour of the linseed paint definitely mellows with time - more than a ordinary modern paint I'd say. I quite like that though, the softer appearance suits an older building, in my opinion.

I have got a new problem with the gates I'm painting at the moment. They are new softwood, not tanalised or vac-vac'd, being painted from bare wood. I get darker spots appearing on the surface of the linseed paint as it dries. The effect diminishes with each coat and sometimes it corresponds to the grain of the wood underneath, almost as if it's linked to the absorbency of the wood - but it doesn't go away with time, at least not within a few days. After 4 coats I've still had to go back and touch in a few areas and some of those may need doing again. Has anyone else come across this? I haven't in all the other painting I've done.

 

[Lime]

Feltwell, did you paint the bare wood with linseed oil first?
I put a lot on and later wipe off the excess.
Iv'e found absorbency can vary a great deal and the oil, left to dry like the paint, seals the wood reasonably well.

As far as the horizontal areas in my case are concerned, I've got a sneaky feeling that it is connected with too much paint applied and too little drying time given.
I look forward to see if there is much difference with my latest painting because I took care to avoid both.

 

[Feltwell]

Yes, plenty of linseed oil went on first, and it was good and hot as well - I use an old camping stove and a saucepan and keep stopping to re-heat the oil. I didn't wipe it off afterwards because I didn't need to, after 24 hours it had all soaked in / dried.

One thing I've noticed from Holkham's site which is new, though nothing to do with my problem - they now tell you to add Zinc Oxide to the first coat to stop mould growth, which isn't something they used to recommend so I'm guessing must be in response to some problems customers have had.

http://www.holkhamlinseedpaints.co.uk/products/zinc-oxide.html