The life span of wooden products can be increased significantly by proper protection. For the surface treatment of wooden jewellery, it is of great importance to choose the right coating. As ecological awareness is gaining traction, the solution might lie in the use of natural oils as coatings. Thus, it was only sensible to examine which natural oil would be the most suitable as surface protection for wooden jewellery. We chose to test five natural oils: linseed, hemp, walnut, coconut and tung oil and a commercial, »decking« oil, for comparison. The oils were tested on beech wood for the following properties: oil uptake, absorption of oil and water, drying behaviour, change of colour and gloss and resistance to cold liquids and dry heat. If we only take into account natural oils without the »decking« oil, the best results were observed as follows: oil uptake, absorption of oil and water, drying behaviour were the best in the case of tung oil. Coconut oil was excluded due to the unpleasant aesthetic changes it had caused on the treated surface. Linseed oil caused the least change of colour to the untreated surface, while the colour of the surface treated with hemp oil changed the least in the period of a year. The best resistance to cold liquids and dry heat was observed with tung oil. The manufacturers should choose by themselves which oil meets their specific needs and the findings in this work may be of help.
|
