My Experience With OSMO For the First Time
Making a project using Australian timbers opens up a whole world of high quality options. Anyone who arrives on Australia’s shores is quickly confronted with timbers that are considerably harder than those that are used in other parts of the world. When we sent some timbers to Europe years ago we received phone calls asking about them because European manufacturers were finding that they needed to change the cutters in the machines that they were using three times as often as they had done before. The average Australian timber is over twice as hard as the average timber from the northern hemisphere. We have many rich colors and styles of timber available.
Because the timbers are incredibly hard they will sand to a burnished finish very thickly. People are able to generate a shine on Australian timbers with a little persistence and a lot sooner than most people realize. In one sanding demonstration we showed how with just a 10 second count we were able to take timber that felt quite rough and make it feel quite polished jumping from a 60 grit sand to a 220grit sand which of course we wouldn’t recommend but it proves the point.
Finishing local timbers with an appropriate coating though is not always easy. For one thing you need a coating that will give you a finish that is workable and also one that will adhere properly. There are many instances where people have sanded Australian timbers to a level that they would normally use with a European timber and have found that the coatings just peeled off because they could not penetrate the surface. Happily there are a number of finishes that work well on Australian timbers and it is a matter of learning their little tips and quirks.
How do you get a project finished quickly and easily?
I can only share my own experience and that of thousands of other people who work with wood.
I was working on a project that I wanted to take home and I realized that I was going to have to spend a lot of time in the workshop if I used my traditional method of working with a polyurethane finish. I have used a lot of polyurethane over the last 20 years. I understand the need to apply a primer coat and let it dry, address any grain lift with a very light sand before vacuuming and applying the second coat which this time would be polyurethane which would need to be left overnight before a light sand and the application of the third coat.
As anyone who has worked with polyurethane knows it is very easy to get nibs and bits of dust in the surface coating which result in little lumps that need to be sanded out and you often have to spend a lot of time making sure that you’re working in a dust free environment and trying to make sure that you don’t have issues with surface tension that affect the flow and levelling of the coating that you are using. Temperature, humidity, dust, flow and levelling are all concerns when working with any type of polyurethane coating.
I was hesitant initially
People had been speaking to me about Osmo oil and talking about how easy it was to finish projects with this oil formula. Frankly I had previously been familiar with very low durability oils and very low durability products many of which have come into vogue in recent years here in WA again as people have jumped on the hard wax oil bandwagon. But from experience I know how poor many of these products are and how difficult they are to maintain. Some of them contain petroleum derivatives which work against the effectiveness of the oil and wax as the petroleum derivative used tends to dry out the timber working directly against the idea behind oil and wax which is designed to feed the timber. So I was somewhat dubious to say the least. In the end it was the idea of having to spend three days coming back to the warehouse to work on the item of furniture that got me over the line.
On the Thursday evening I had finished sanding to an appropriate level for the Osmo. Stopping at a hundred grit on Jarrah just didn’t seem to make any sense to me and yet that was the recommended sanding grade for working with the Polyx 3032. I know that some people recommend lighter versions of Osmo on Jarrah but I also know that the lighter oils can send timbers a bit darker than what I was looking for. So I decided I would follow the practical advice of people who had been working with this product for a while and simply sand the Jarrah to 100 grit or 120 grit and then apply the oil using a rag to work it into the surface.
I had done a little research obviously because the whole application process seemed to be very light. I didn’t feel that I was applying much finish. It was only then that I realized that being such a high solid product, there is very little that evaporates. Working with most polyurethane products I am used to approximately 70% of what I apply evaporating while the product coalesces and forms into the surface coating. With Osmo it’s all about penetration into the wood rather than applying a coating onto the wood. They said so I decided to take it at its word and give it a go.
The first coat was pretty much dry as I applied it because I worked it into the wood and I found that I was able to apply a second coat before I left. The following day I came back and looked at the timber and I could see that it was looking beautiful. Excellent colour development and the grain really showed up perfectly. So I went ahead and applied the final two coats that day, which was the Friday. I’ve stuck to the rag method because I find that working with a rag as opposed to working with a stiff brush or roller allows me to work the oil into corners and around soft edges without any risk of runs. I also found that it generated a very nice surface. At the end of the day I wondered if I would be able to transport my project home and I decided that I would. No issues.
Over the weekend I had to give this whole subject quite a lot of thought. Had I been using polyurethane I would have applied the sealer coat on the Thursday and then on the Friday I would have rubbed it back and wiped it down to get rid of all the dust and grit and then applied the first polyurethane coat and then I would have come back on the Saturday rubbed it down and applied the next coat or hopefully finish coat of polyurethane and then I would have been checking over very carefully on the Sunday to see whether or not I needed another coat and whether I needed to do anything about nibs formed due to dust. As it was I was able to take the product home finished on the Friday evening. So it was a lot faster and a lot easier and I was really impressed with the finish.
So it was a lot faster and a lot easier and I was really impressed with the finish.
These days I look back on that project and wonder why I was hesitant. I’ve met many hundreds of people who say to me that the only thing that they regret about Osmo is the fact that they didn’t discover it sooner. It just works. I don’t know about you but these days I find that there are a lot of products with a lot of claims about them and they don’t always seem to do just what they say they do. There seem to be lots of quirks and traps that you need to know. With Osmo you just have to get your head around the two things that I had to get my head around which is getting the sanding process right so that the grain of the timber remains open and then the idea of applying finish very thinly so that it can penetrate into the wood. I’ve done lots of calculations and tried to work this subject out to try and explain it simpler than this but quite frankly there isn’t really a simple way that I have found than just explain that when you apply other finishes a lot of the product is evaporating but with Osmo it is a high solid product and much of the product is going to penetrate and form a beautiful protective surface both in and to a small degree on top of the timber.
“it just does exactly what it says it does”
Having worked with timber for many decades and seen lots of products come and go I don’t get really excited about a lot of products but Osmo is one of those that is an exception. It works. This morning I was watching a video where a reviewer was talking about a product and with a surprising tone in his voice he turned to the camera and said “it just does exactly what it says it does” with a note of surprise clearly evident on his face. I remembered that as I was reading through my observations here and I think I would say exactly the same thing. Osmo performs exactly as it says it does which is to make the whole approach of finishing timber easy and simple yet perform beautifully with excellent durability. You get from A to B in a straight line working with Osmo.
To those of you who have tried a hard wax oil and been disappointed I would say this. I’ve had exactly the same experience with a lot of products as well. I found that some contain resin and so they look more like a polyurethane and I found others that don’t have any concept of proper maintenance or durability. But with Osmo it is a complete package. Maintenance is covered and the product is designed to be durable.
Anyway I’ve shared by experience with you here and I hope it helps you if you think about your next project whether it be timber flooring or furniture for inside or out. I think that you will be just as impressed with Osmo Oil as I am if you give it a go.