Charlie: Fred from Cyprus wrote to us Tom, and he wants to know what do you use to clean and polish wood veneer furniture? You mentioned working with antiques when you were younger.
Podcast: Play in new window
Tom: To clean ’em up we would use a solution that we would mix ourselves. It was two parts mineral spirits and one part boiled linseed oil. Again, don’t boil it yourself, you buy it boiled. It’s the same kind of linseed oil Charlie, because you are such a baseball fan, we used to work our gloves in with.
Charlie: There you go.
Tom: So, mix that up and you can use a four zero steel wool to apply it. Always in a small spot first, to make sure it’s what you want to use.
Charlie: Yeah.
Tom: And then, once it’s all done …
Charlie: Preferably a small place you don’t look at a lot.
Tom: Yeah, of course. And also, what it will do is it’ll moisturize the wood and, hide the scratches because, the oil kind of, blends the scratches together. And the mineral spirits will clean it. So, it does two things and it’s very simple to use. We used it on antiques all the time. And, that’s what I would tell you to do. Now, a little warning. When you wipe it down, say you’re all done. There’s a little excess on there, you have to wipe some up and use a rag. Wipe it up no problem. But, put that rag in your sink and get it wet then, put it in a zip lock bag and throw it away. Because, it will instantaneously combust sometimes, if it sits around with mixture on it. Don’t ask me why, that goes beyond my pay grade. It smolders.
Charlie: I’m sure there is somewhere, there’s a petro chemical engineer listening to you.
Tom: Oh yeah.
Charlie: “Oh, you damn fool. It happens because of this.”
Tom: Well, I know that. But, that’s what happens.
Charlie: Alright.