Today I spent the day oiling the finished floor of the lower cell at Allerton Abbey (as well as the edges of the experimental bunkroom floor) while the rest of the
boots were planting stuff. The experimental floor is now finished, except for drying, but the
cob floor needs more oil.
A few notes:
The cob floor in the lower cell absorbed oil much more quickly than the experimental floor did, which isn't surprising, since the experimental floor already had oil mixed into it to begin with. I put eight coats onto the cob floor today, and it still needs more (the oil is still being absorbed very quickly).
When applying the linseed oil, we leave the edges of the floor unoiled and come back later with a smaller brush due to potential wicking issues/not wanting to ruin the plaster walls with stray linseed oil. When going back over the edges of the experimental floor, I noticed some wicking up the wall from the last time I had oiled the edges (over a week ago). It was pretty minor, a few millimeters at most. This occurred despite having reserved the edges and gone back later with a small brush, so today I stopped the oil application a couple of millimeters away from the wall instead of going right up to it with the small brush.
The cob floor wicked much more dramatically in a much shorter period of time. Possibly because it's more absorptive, or because it contains manure fibers? The oil I applied before lunch wicked across approximately three inches of dry edge in many spots, although it didn't really hurt anything, because the lower edge of whitewashed wall has to be repaired anyway (it was damaged during the laying in of the finish floor). It wicked more dramatically at the edges where my brushstrokes were perpendicular to the wall (probably since more oil is deposited at the end of the brushstrokes); some wicking occurred where my brushstrokes ran parallel to the wall, but not nearly as much.
The process of applying the oil removed a lot of sand from the floor. The areas where Fred had burnished the finish floor held up much better; the areas that were not burnished (due to time constraints) are a bit pockmarked now where a lot of sand was rubbed out by my brushstrokes. The value of burnishing the floor is more apparent after oiling than before, when it seemed barely noticeable.
(Day 37)
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