Trade secrets: a method for cooking

oil varnish by Nicolas Gilles

17 JANUARY 2020

A technique that relies on the senses and helps you get the right varnish for your needs, by Nicolas Gilles, luthier in
Villeneuvette, France

Cooking your own oil varnish means that you have control over variables such as colour,
softness, brittleness and alcohol solubility (for the purposes of doing copies). Making oil
varnish is not difficult; but what is very difficult is achieving the desired result in one cooking
session. Using inexpensive and easily sourced ingredients like linseed oil and colophony (the
solid residue of raw pine resin – from Pinus pinaster – distillation) enables you to experiment
as many times as is necessary to achieve the varnish you require.

The method described here is a sensitive one that doesn’t require the use of a thermometer.
Instead, confidence in your own sensations is key, and this will increase with experience as you
become accustomed to recognising fume concentrations, the different smells and the feel of
cooked colophony. Keep in mind that at any stage of the process the hot oil and the warmed
colophony can be very dangerous to both skin and lungs. Indeed, some people are allergic to colophony.

There are three basic stages: cooking the colophony, cooking the oil, then mixing them. All the cooking is done on an electric
hotplate (gas must never be used) and takes place outdoors, because of the strong smell and toxic fumes.

1. I take 500g of colophony and put a little of it (enough to cover the surface) in a copper pan on
an electric hotplate. I start with a low temperature, just hot enough for the colophony to start
melting. When the colophony has liquified I add a pinch of rusty iron powder. (I make this
myself by putting a magnet in my millstone grinding machine water tank to attract the rusting
iron particles). This iron oxide will help in developing a dark colour.

Colophony melting over a

low heat. All photos by
Nicolas Gilles
 2. I increase the temperature slightly in order to generate light fumes (2a). After about 50
minutes of this, the colour should be darker; if it isn’t, I increase the temperature – but the
fumes should never get heavier than those pictured in 2b.

Light fumes, heavy fumes

Gradual darkening of the colophony at different stages of heating

3. When the colophony in the pan does start to get darker, I add a small extra handful every 30 minutes. After five hours of
heating, the liquid should be very dark, and there should be no colophony left from the initial 500g. Adding colophonyin small
increments means that some will be cooked for a long time, which gives a good colour, and other parts will be cooked less, which
will help in antiquing (for better alcohol solubility).

4. I pour the hot colophony into an aluminium pie dish and put it aside. Through cooking, the
500g of raw colophony has reduced to only 160g.

Cooked colophony poured

into a dish
Cleaning the oil: stages of separation

5. To clean the oil, I use a plastic bottle with a smooth surface into which I pour equal quantities of water and cold-pressed
linseed oil (I use basic oil; for me, using an expensive brand doesn’t make much difference).I shake the mixture then leave it to
settle for 48 hours. In the picture you can see the oil separating from the water. The white part in the middle is the mucilage,
which must be discarded.To test the colour as I go along, I dip a knife into the hot colophony. If you want a pale varnish, you need
to have cooked the colophony long enough so that when you break the cooled substance between your fingers it’s no longer
sticky. At the other end of the spectrum, the darker the colour, the less alcohol soluble it will be (thus causing difficulties in
creating a patina with alcohol if you’re varnishing a copy).

6. To extract the washed oil, I place the bottle in the copper pan – if there is still a little resin left
in, the oil will clean the pan by dissolving the remaining resin. I make a hole in the bottle just
above the mucilage to allow the oil to pour out. I’m especially careful not to allow any water to
get into the oil, as that could be dangerous during cooking (the water beneath the oil would
start to boil and thus project hot oil from the pan).

An easy way of separating

the oil from the water
 7. For each litre of linseed oil I put in a teaspoon of raw umber, which contains manganese, a
natural siccative that will help the oil to dry. I cook the oil on the electric hotplate with light
fumes for four hours. I check the oil’s drying ability by putting a thin coat on a piece of plastic
and placing this sample in a UV box. In 24 hours it should be dry; if it isn’t, I cook it for one more
hour. I leave the oil to cool before moving on to the next step.

Adding a teaspoon of raw

umber to a litre of linseed oil

8. It’s time to mix the cold cooked colophony with the cold cooked oil. In a clean pan, I mix
(measured in weight) two parts oil with three parts colophony for a high-colophony-ratio
varnish. Alternatively, for an oilier varnish I mix one part oil to one part colophony. (It’s always
possible to add some cold cooked oil to the finished varnish later, to adjust the oiliness.) The
more oil there is, the more durable the varnish will be – robust but less brittle. Next, I heat the
mixture on the hotplate, raising the temperature slowly and gradually to produce light fumes. I
cook the mixture, while stirring it from time to time, for a maximum of one hour.

Weighing the desired ratio of

cooked colophony to cooked
oil for mixing
 9. I switch off the electric plate and let the mixture cool down to a temperature that makes
touching the pan possible. I then add enough pure turpentine to give the varnish the
consistency of liquid honey.Finally, I filter the varnish through a stocking.

9a Diluting the mixture with

turpentine

9b Filtering the varnish

 10. The varnish is now ready for use. If the colophony has been cooked properly, it will not be
necessary to add any pigments. With three to four coats you should achieve the right colour
and thickness. You could test it for brittleness, softness and alcohol solubility in order to
classify it. If it doesn’t dry well under UV light, you could add a siccative such as cobalt drier. A
varnish is never ‘bad’ – and it can always be mixed with other varnishes in order to achieve
variations. It can be kept for many years and will get better with time, like a good wine.
The finished varnish applied
to wood