Boiled linseed oil

I've been making a small bike shed out of pallet wood. The back will be pretty much impossible to coat once built and also it's a cost thing. I've been looking at boiled linseed oil to give it a good few coats. Would anyone recommend it?

currently £60 for 25l of boiled linseed oil

Any other cost effective treatments I can use?

Thanks

 

You are almost on the right track...the thing to use is a mixture of 1 part boiled linseed oil, ! part balsma terpentine, and 1 part pine tar. Used on its own, it gives a nice golden colour to wood. Adding pigment changes that. It can be bought ready mixed, but what its called in the UK I have no idea....

 

If its not an issue regarding appearance, I covered the rear of my shed with green mineral roofing felt, I can't see it and it's difficult to get to, its been good for the last 15 yrs or so.

Pallet wood will rot pretty fast in my experience and UV is a big part of the problem if it gets a lot of sun.

 

If cost is such a factor then see the link below where you can buy Wood /Shed / Fence treatments for as little as £5 for 5 ltrs which would readily cover a small shed.

Importantly its the end grain /cuts that need most protection, worth dipping the ends after you have cut then to size, but before you assemble the shed.

As @pete says , after painting cover the rear side with felt, about £20 or even cheaper some tough dpm sheet.

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Damp Proof Membrane 3m x 4m

 

Cheers for the replies. Reason cost is a issue 5l of wood treatment coated my sides of shed only 3 times. So 3x5 ft coated twice on outside once on frame and once on inside of outside wood. That's for both sides. I have yet to make a back


The back which will be approx 7x5 ft and doors that will be a combined length of 7ft and 3ft high. The roof will be covered in felt which I have yet to work out how to hinged and make water tight. The floor will be using some left over decking oil

 

I put two coats of Cuprinol Colours on my shed when I put it up. That was 6 years back. The colour (light blue) hasn't faded and it's still as water-repellant as when I first did it. Well recommended if you want coloured wood.

I experimented last year with a mix of raw linseed oil (much cheaper from horse feed suppliers!), turps substitute and beeswax, on oak sleepers which will become a raised bed for veg. It hasn't lasted well, but I only got one coat on. It's my project for this summer, so I'll try to do more coats this time. I can't use normal wood treatments because I'll be growing veg in the beds.

 

Thanks all. I prob should have gone for ducksback but gone for ronseal fence life plus as it had UV protection.

I'll will try this linseed oil stuff on another small project soon for future. Tho my preference would still be creosote of old but as I'm not a pro or a farmer it's a no

 

Hi @Steve80 you can get Creocote which smells similar to creosote. I'm trying it on some path edging. Creosote is still available to anyone - if you're willing to buy a very large barrel of it...But I suspect I'd end up handing most of it on to my kids in my will!

 

Cheers for that I may look again at creosote. I've used creocote before and haven't been impressed. Ended up using ronseal fence normal stuff

 

Creocote is essentially a form of creosote with all the nasty chemicals taken out. The problem isit was the nasty chemicals that made creosote effective. So Creocote can be used by the man in the street without having to worry too much about it being carcinogenic etc, just less effective.
Creosote is still available to professionals who have to wear protective clothing and take precautions to prevent environmental contamination. It is still used for the hot vacuum impregnation of telegraph poles and sleepers.

 

We used, many years ago, to use a treatment for softwood joinery called Protim, there was another called Vac Vac, it was a basic pressure treatment but was very good, I still have some timbers from those days in my porch.
It had some dodgy ingredients most of which are now banned, but I can remember it dripping off my elbows, when working with it, 30 years ago.

TBH, if its not toxic, it aint gonna work.

Which brings us right up to date.

 

Protim is still used to pressure treat timber. I have some in the shed that my father got in the seventies to treat the area round some rotten wood he had cut out. It's very thin thin and readily absorbed by the wood.

 

I think the nasties were, tributyltin and gamma HCH, Lindane ,that is off the top of my head, I did do some COSHH assessments a long time ago for the workshop, but it all got beyond me.

It was in a white spirit solution so was readily absorbed.