Morris Minor Owners Club

I need to touch up, the wood on my Traveller. What suggestion does anyone have? I have been told to give it a light sand and then Yacht varnish, also told Danish oil. any help on this would give me an idea of what i need to buy for my weekend project.

Cheers,

Ben in Newquay.

there are lots of choices....

I boiled down most of the advice on these boards and put it all on a web page wiki here http://morristechnicaltips.wiki.com/Body/Wood

There are many other options apart from those presented on the quoted wiki. Everyone has their own preferences, and the subject has been discussed on the board many times. Try a search for earlier repsonses and you'll get loads of advice. One thing on which most people agree is that whilst varnish looks great when fresh, it was used originally as then current technology. Things have moved on and finishes that are today's current technology are probably better for all except concours cars. Now I stand back and wait for a barage of objections to my assessment, but I did say "most" not "all" agree

if there are more options please add them to the wiki or if you find a thread link let me know and ill do the update.

the wiki I started is supposed to be used to store as much info as possible all easily sorted and for all to share and contribute to

cheers

Rob_Jennings wrote:if there are more options please add them to the wiki

Can I respectfully suggest that if you intend the Wiki to be authoratative it might be better to politely approach Steve Foreman at Woodies and perhaps the proprietor of Traveller Timbers for information.

They ought to have as great a collective expertise as you will find anywhere.

I do have some information kindly sent to me by Steve but I think it would be both diplomatic and polite to approach him directly and acknowledge him as a source on the Wiki.

I need to touch up, the wood on my Traveller. What suggestion does anyone have? I have been told to give it a light sand and then Yacht varnish, also told Danish oil.

One issue you have overlooked you cant just touch in an area unless you know what finish was used last time, and dont use danish oil unless you like the different finish it gives most who have tried it have regretted it.

i think i am going with the Yacht varnish, I have been into a marine supplier in Falmouth, who also owns a Traveller and he showed me his and how it turned out. so i bought a Varnish called "blakes". I think it should turn out very nice

dont use danish oil unless you like the different finish it gives

It's like Marmite, you either love it, or you hate it.

Personally, I love it. More stylish than glossy varnish. (and so is Danish oil) .

What kind of finish does Danish oil give? Anyone got a piccy to show?

well tung oil is better than danish oil any way, more refined.
it goes on easy, thin first coat well with turps.
can be applied with brush then ragged off
gives a darker finish
but needs doing on a regular basis.
can become flaky after a few years
finish is a semi matt
personally i would not use it on a traveller wood.
i would use the sikkens cetol

The Danish oil finish is semi-matt. I'll see if I can conjure up a picture later in the week.

It leaves the wood looking, well, like polished wood, without an obvious coating. Imagine well-kept wooden garden furniture.

isn`t that what i just said ?????????? leaves a semi matt finish

isn`t that what i just said ?????????? leaves a semi matt finish

I'm sorry, I didn't know only one reply with the same info was allowed, and anyway, your post was ambiguous, it appeared to be talking about Tung oil.

Be that as it may, here are some pics of my Traveller with danish-oiled wood. The wood was mostly replaced in 1993, and Danish-oiled regularly since.

It was sanded down and new oil applied in May this year, when I bought the car.

I think it still looks good.

That looks nice. Where is it kept, and how much use does it get? I've heard on here that using oil means it's hard to keep road grime out of the grain.

Ours is used most days and lives outside so I had rejected oiling as unsuitable.

Axolotl, That's a very pretty Traveller


The oiled wood looks nice - a very attractive colour

Thanks for the compliments.

The car is kept in a garage, so it doesn't have to withstand all weathers.

I use it about three or four times a week for trundling round town, with an occasional long (70-mile plus) motorway trip.

I have to admit it has only been out in wet weather three times. Blame this long hot summer for that.

Just washing the wood in car shampoo seems to get the road dirt off the wood, but you could be right, over time, with a lot of traffic use, I guess the grime would tend to build up more than on varnish.

On the other hand, when (if) it does get really grimy, there's nothing to remove except a light sanding of the wood. You don't have to use stripper or anything before you can get at bare wood to bleach or clean it.

I also like the way you can soak the oil into the end-grain at the bottom of the rear pillars to give a bit more protection, and the oil naturally tends to collect in the joints as you reapply it, so they always get a good seal.

Ask me again in ten years.

I used Danish oil and Tung oil on my Traveller when i first got it. Its fine for a show car but if you use the car all year round- in the winter in traffic-, the finish quickly becomes dark as it traps road dirt. Needs a lot of maintainence in a year round daily used car.
For the new side of wood, I used the Sikkens cetol system. Still good 2 years later. I will be giving it a sand and a new coat of filter 7 as soon as the garage space becomes available.

If it's easy to re-apply it might mean it gets reapplied more often. The bit about endgrain is interesting too, as getting other treatments into joints is very hard.

Hmmm. I'll have to give that some thought when the current surface treatment needs to be replaced.

Axolts car does look nice though! The oil gives the wood more of a wet look, like yacht varnish. I'm normally one to promote the old ways of doing things as being better, but in this case for a daily use car, the Sikkens (or other micro porous treatments) works for my car better than the other treatments I tried.

Whatever you use, make sure you remove all traces of previous varnish/ whatever was on it before ( eg with a scarsten scraper) and bleach any black spots then sand the wood carefully, finishing with a fine grade of paper. Mask the metal panels with masking tape to avoid scratching them.

Sikkens is what's on our car now. It was done in june and looks quite nice, but I've no idea on longevity as we've only had the car five months. I'll see what it looks like in the spring...