The secret of Linseed oil.

Flax aka Linseed oil, ancient wood finish. Why some oil dries and some doesn't? Bonus: best oil for seasoning cast iron.

[Underground]

My first reaction after seeing this was to send it to my father.. After the thought I remember, my dad is gone. Passed away last month. That all familiar gut punch that hits so hard. My dad was a huge fan, and I have so many good memories of us watching your vidoes. Thank you for that.

[RonSommers]

Linseed oil is what Stradivarius used on violins. He complained in a letter to a patron that it took so long for the varnish to dry. Cooking the oil varnish in an iron pot would impart a metal 'dryer' to the varnish, but it still took a long time to completely polymerize. Enter spirt varnish that dries in a few hours and Strad's "lost secret" fell by the wayside. It so happens that linseed oil varnish 'browns' as it ages, which is why a 150 year old Strad 'looks' golden brown. He didn't use leather dye to achieve that 'look'. He used time. Love AvE!

[tomphillips]

Hey - some time ago, you said in a video that 'if you can just be the guy that fixes the thing' then progression in engineering would be achievavable. So I quit being a stonemason, got an entry level job in a subcontract engineering firm, grafted my ass off, fixed a load of stuff, and am doing far better than I ever thought possible after one year. So thanks for that. Spotted a part that was (after the dial protractor came out) just ten minutes out of square last week, so I guess the old stonebashing wasn't completeley wasted. Love your work, Man.

[Shaun.Stephens]

Linoleum. The first synthetic floor covering was made from sheets of polymerised linseed oil (usually in the form of a 'composite' with one smooth polymerised oil-only side, sometimes with ground cork as a filler - bulking agent). Amazing stuff.

[Surmoka]

Nice explanation, but C atoms all have exactly 4 connections if electrons are not delocalized. If one C atom has a double bond, it will have only 2 other connections, so excess H atoms must be cleared from this drawing at many places.

[mike_aglione]

Oh AVE you amazing silly goose. Great video, and as always I love your lessons. For future reference when you decide to go all Vincent Van Gogh and draw a polymer or two, remember carbon can only make 4 single bonds (for our purposes of course). If you’re making a double bond that means there can only be 2 more lines comin off of ‘er. Devil’s in the details y’a know. Cheers!

[BrianChristmas]

So Popeye didn't tung Olive Oil because she was a free radical?! I'm lost...

[kevinmartin]

Lots of strange chemistry going on there... an organic acid that looks like an alcohol, 5-valence carbons, ... but the basic idea is sound. It probably started off when people used metal pots to heat the oil; the pots would have been tin, copper, or maybe pewter, any of which would be a rich source of metal ions suitable for hardening the oil. Not so sure why they would have been heating the oil though, as french fries had not been invented yet.

[SternLX]

Long long ago when I was a teen, I asked the Chef at the restaurant I was working at Busing tables why he was cooking Linseed oil in a new pan. He said "to season it, make it so stuff doesn't stick." Me being quizzical asked "How does that work?" he said, "I don't know, it just does." I haven't thought about that question in decades and today I finally got my answer.

[notsonominal]

Bonus fun fact, its an exothermic reaction. Paper/rags soaked with linseseed oil can self ignite as the oil polymerises. Use caution!

[lgude]

As a still kicking 80 year old I finally understand how Linseed oil works and why tung oil is different. Used both for years but never knew I was working with plastic any more that ancient woodworkers did. Ave strikes again and smartens up the Internet.

[mikecostanzo]

I absolutely love how you can describe something so complex, and still use terms like "hangbadang". Your mastery of the English language is unsurpassed in our lifetime.

[UniCacher]

Four minutes and fifty seconds is what it took to make some sense out of a topic that three years of chemistry confused me about. Thanks for breaking it down in classic AvE style!

[ehrichweiss]

I came here to learn about linseed oil(I knew a lot already but this was still very educational) but then actually learned why I'm having such a tough time seasoning one of my pans. I'd been told that since olive oil has such a low smoke point, it'd polymerize a lot easier but now I'm thinking that AvE is right and I gotta go reseason it.

[jonored]

Unboiled linseed oil does in fact polymerize when exposed to air, it just does it much slower (and it's higher viscosity, boiled has some volatiles added to get it easier to brush); the boiled stuff is just more convenient, and there's a nice continuous path of development from "this oil works well as a finish" to "if we do this to it it works _really_ well and quicker for a finish".

[freestyla]

Never knew olive oil wasn’t a good choice for seasoning pans. Not only have you taught me the finer points of drilling holes, but also how to get the most out of my cookware

[TDOBrandano]

You got a lot of valence 5 carbons in that molecule, I am sure that's ground for a Nobel prize.

[jerensteffen]

Didn't realize carbon could have a double bond and 3 single bonds at the same time.

[Szlater]

Thanks for bring back memories of my undergraduate organic chemistry lectures….forgotten how much I used to enjoy them!

[kennethjackson]

I was ten or younger when I refinished a rifle stock. Not understanding the difference between boiled and unboiled linseed oil, I twisted a bit of stiff wire around a bit of rag to make a paint brush, set up a Sterno stove in the driveway, and put some linseed oil in a small tin can. Yes, I applied BOILING linseed oil, not BOILED, to the wood. It was still in great shape 50+ years later when I sold the rifle.