Originally Posted by
OurWorkbench
Beautiful, very well done. What did you use on the wood?
Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.
Thank you.
The finished parts are cleaning with a damp cloth and a drop of dishwashing soap, this will remove any grime. The unfinished wood is just wiped with a damp cloth and left to dry outside. It should be able to dry in a couple minutes.
Afterwards I applied mineral oil to the whole wood surface and sand with 1000 grit sandpaper. I keep the sandpaper drenched in oil. You don't really want to sand just get rid of light scuffs and dirt and help the oil penetrate.
Wipe the excess oil with a dry cloth and rub it into the wood, let sit for a couple of minutes and you are good to go.
I disassembled the whole thing piece by piece to clean and oil all the metal hardware and treat the wood properly. If you are doing this time is of importance the wood is used to having certain forces applied to it and if it's old it's probably extremely dry and thirsty if left to dry overnight it can warp.
So no excess water on the rag, work in a sunny day with good air flow and it should all be fine.
Sorry for the huge rant but woodworkers never shut up about wood.