Linseed and Acetone....

To seal the wood i used a 50/50 mix of linseed oil and acetone. The story behind this concoction was that i had been advised to use a acetone based sanding sealant, but it was not possible to find one . Some research on the net showed that model makers working with Jelutong used a 50/50 boiled linseed and spirit mix to seal their wood. I already had raw linseed oil as i play cricket and it is used to maintain the "spring" in a cricket bat. I found out (purely through chance) that ASDA actually sell pure acetone over the counter mainly for removing false nails. i thought this would be a good replacement for the spirits part of the mix as the only pure spirits i could get hold of was purple stained meths and i was worried about the added colouring ruining the wood.

So i mixed up a small batch and started to experiment with some scrap pieces of wood. these were rubbed with a wet rag of the mix and left on a radiator to evaporate away. The results were pretty pleasing so i went agead and rubbed down my model with the mix, again leaving on a radiator to evaporate off before repeating. This was done three times in total.

And then i droped it again. Right onto the lid containing the mixture. You see the problem with oils are that they make things slipery and while trying to take a picture with my other free hand the model again decided to take a little jump

So this meant some more filling, waiting sanding and then coating again. but eventually i got there