Notes of white spirt with a linseed oil finish...

 A blog hasn't been forthcoming recently and is probably a little overdue, so apologies to those unfortunate enough to have been biding time with imminent anticipation over the last few days, but there's been 'stuff' to do which is outside the remit of The Blokeblog...such as painting and gardening.

These days t'interweb and especially places like Instagram seem to have no end of snippets of handy (or otherwise) information for the aspiring woodmangler or not as the case may be.  They're all intended to be short cuts; interesting, quirky techniques designed to save time, money or both.

Sometimes they're clever, ingenious almost and worth committing to memory, that's provided of course that you or I (in this case) have got a few spare functioning brain cells left. In many instances though, what's shown in the clip is bloody dangerous, especially when it shows large lumps of spinning steel perilously close to pink, fleshy digits.

When I was a callow 'youf' these little snippets were called 'tips n'tricks'; modern, savvy parlance refers to them as a 'hack' but the only time I've ever had a so called 'hack' is when I've had a stinking cough and felt like death warmed up.

Here's a question though.  How many times have you opened a tin of varnish or Osmo PolyX (which skins over at the drop a proverbial hat) and found that there's a thick, armour plated skin on the surface that requires a sharp knife to remove? Once you've removed it there's a better than even chance that it'll drop back into the now gloopy liquid and then you've got to fish it out with a stick, not to mention all the usable stuff that you've got to try and recover back into the tin. Being a tad parsimonious, it used to irk me beyond belief!

Recently though, I came across a really good 'hack' and for what it's worth, all you need is an empty wine bottle, a plastic funnel and one of those clever little jobbies that suck most of the air out of the bottle. Being partial to a glass or three of the 'vino collapso' a half empty bottle of wine is a thing that simply doesn't exist; a snowball would have a better chance in Hell.

 

It's the air that causes the contents to skin over; remove most of the air and the contents will stay pristine! The stuff in the bottle is a rubbing polish and consists of equal parts of white spirit, boiled linseed oil, polyurethane varnish and Osmo PolyX. It's been in there for around three months and shows no sign of deteriorating.

It's not though, recommended to decant a glass to accompany a thick, juicy steak.