Making milk paint with @Giles 's recipe (trying just a pint to start). I also have a collection of pigments to play with, so I’ll post some photos of the results.
Milk paint
looking good. As with most finishing, have a play, make sure you are certain of your mix before you commit. I tried various clear coats as a little extra protection. I really dont think its necessary. If you do opt for a clear finish coat, Danish oil was the best by far. It only alters the dead flat finish fractionally. What are you painting?
BLO worked well on the shop bought stuff I had (but that’s very similar to DO anyhow). I’ll experiment a bit but almost certainly one of them.
This is for my tool chest eventually, but I want to see how bright a red I can get, so a bit of testing to do first.
Watching the curds dissolve in the lime is like magic - now I just need to decide what colour to make (and make more!).
Hard to capture on camera, but I think a yellowish red with BLO on it works well for the colour I had in mind. And if I hate it I can do a rolling stones special and paint it black.
Yeah BLO would work. I like your bench top.
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I have stuck with pure pigment in a particular colour ( basically red oxide) so I don’t have any issues if I need to mix more.
This is reasonably close to how it looks in person - scarlet to red once you add the BLO. I went for about 25% yellow to 75% red in the end (both natural pigments).
One thing I found particularly weird was the way skimmed milk worked so much better than semi skimmed (which I tried because I thought the fat content would be higher and yield more curds). Larger batches work better too I think - my final batch was done with 2L of skimmed milk and gave me about 270g of curds.
Thanks @Giles for all the advice. This was very rewarding and I’ll definitely be repeating it for future projects.
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It’s a very useful finish and not difficult to produce once you get a little experience. Milk paint definitely has a number of positive characteristics.
Yes looks nice. Are all the boards aligned with the grain running around the outside of the box? So, not a cross grain construction. Is it a time tested way to make a tool chest. I need a chest myself ?
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I can see it’s nailed together. How is the apron built and then attached?
And what about the hinges? I demand answers sir! Ha ha ha
Correct - although I want to try a cross-grain blanket chest at some point also.
I had an interesting discussion with Matt Parker on tool chests - this is the second one I’ve built (the Dutch tool chest being the first) and I’m still not sure which one I prefer. I do like the tills on this one (small stuff had a habit of cluttering up the top compartment on the DTC - but adding a shallow drawer would have helped with that). The DTC is much better for storage of moulding and wooden planes, no question. This chest doesn’t have the height for a moulding plane corral and two tills.
If you want the plans for this one I can send them to you - they’re part of the Anarchist’s Design Book by Chris Schwartz, I just added a skirt to it.
Hinges I ended up shipping from the UK as j couldn’t find a reasonably priced North American supplier! Search blacksmith strap hinges and there’s a whole range available for country doors etc. I’ll update my build thread at some point with more photos.
Yes, I would love a look at the plans for the chest. Your previous post has IMG and numbers. I have no idea what that is? More pictures are always good Ed.