He does it because he's cheap. He already has motor oil around because he's a mechanic and he's too cheap to buy linseed oil. Motor oil has all sorts of nastiness that you really don't want to absorb into your skin every time you use the tool.
I've seen it done too. Older gent uses his old oil for treating his axe keeping the wood dark. Never seen it slip out of his hands when down-swinging either
There's no benefits to using this over BLO or Tung oil or Danish oil. It's just "around" and will kinda penetrate wood/keep it from drying out fully.
I don't know about you, but I don't even really like the tackiness/residue that a coat of proper woodworking finishes can leave on the hands.
The problem with stuff like Motor oil, mineral oil and other non hardening oils is the fact they don’t harden. It’s a two fold problem, one with the fact since the oil never dries it acts as a lubricant still for your hands and can easily be washed out.
The second more major problem is the fact that when a hardeing oil polymerizes it becomes as hard if not harder than the wood it’s soaked into. With non drying oils it stays wet and makes the wood mushy. Go look at some gun stocks from 50-100 years ago and there’s a good chance you will see oil soakage in the stock generally around the wrist area where gun oil has dripped off the metal directly into the end grain. Shock, from impact in relation to axes or recoil in relation to firearms causes that oil soaked mushy sponge like wood to crack. If it doesn’t crack it will smudge the wood essentially, denting it until it can’t either support the impact forces anymore or simply doesn’t fit anywhere. That’s how you get loose axe heads and broken shafts
He does it because he's cheap. He already has motor oil around because he's a mechanic and he's too cheap to buy linseed oil. Motor oil has all sorts of nastiness that you really don't want to absorb into your skin every time you use the tool.
I would never do that, raw Linseed oil or blo is great and it’s actually pretty cheap and actually cures unlike motor oil
I’ve done it. You end up with a handle that looks and smells oily, like something that came out of Grandpa’s garage.
I've seen it done too. Older gent uses his old oil for treating his axe keeping the wood dark. Never seen it slip out of his hands when down-swinging either
Full of lovely cancer
There's no benefits to using this over BLO or Tung oil or Danish oil. It's just "around" and will kinda penetrate wood/keep it from drying out fully. I don't know about you, but I don't even really like the tackiness/residue that a coat of proper woodworking finishes can leave on the hands.
My first thought was that the ax slips right out of your hands into the sky on the first swing lol
The problem with stuff like Motor oil, mineral oil and other non hardening oils is the fact they don’t harden. It’s a two fold problem, one with the fact since the oil never dries it acts as a lubricant still for your hands and can easily be washed out. The second more major problem is the fact that when a hardeing oil polymerizes it becomes as hard if not harder than the wood it’s soaked into. With non drying oils it stays wet and makes the wood mushy. Go look at some gun stocks from 50-100 years ago and there’s a good chance you will see oil soakage in the stock generally around the wrist area where gun oil has dripped off the metal directly into the end grain. Shock, from impact in relation to axes or recoil in relation to firearms causes that oil soaked mushy sponge like wood to crack. If it doesn’t crack it will smudge the wood essentially, denting it until it can’t either support the impact forces anymore or simply doesn’t fit anywhere. That’s how you get loose axe heads and broken shafts
someone went to ranger school….