you can a bit of Japan Drier to BLO to speed up the cure and get the BLO to the "rub-in" stage quicker. the hardest part of finishing a stock with it is the waiting for it to dry. most guys the use it a lot build a drying box. which is simply a plywood box big enough for the stock with light bulb in it for a little heat. if you look in older books and articles written by the older famous high power gunstock makers, there are a few different recipes of different elements added to the BLO that speed up the grain fill. those guys knew what worked and what didn't. most problems with BLO come from not rubbing it in good enough and/or not letting it dry completely between coats. the worst thing you can do, is hot coat it, where a new coat is applied over a not completely dry coat. that is most likely what caused the mess on fleto's stock in the rain. for good finish, you need to rub the BLO in until it feels like there is nothing on the surface of the wood, then let it dry absolutely dry, before applying another coat. it should reach a condition where it starts to build up on the surface and then be burnished back, removing what is not in the pores of the wood. wet or dry paper or fine steel wool with 50/50 mixture of turps/paint thinner and BLO for a lubricant is best. you must use a lubricant when burnishing because without it, all you will do is heat up the BLO and create a gooey layer of finish that all the drier and evaporates have been leached out. when this happens the BLO won't dry completely for months,.... sometimes even years. the trick is to use short periods of burnishing followed by a good and frequent wiping off of the sluice produced . it isn't tricky to use BLO,... but you have to follow all the steps to produce a good finish. cutting corners to speed up the process always results in problems. something I discovered recently is using typical spar varnish that has sat in an open can or jar, until it is the consistency of thick honey, or even a little thicker. I discovered this quit by accident, actually. I had just finished making a stock for myself and found an old jar with just a bit of old thick spar varnish in the bottom of the jar. I gave it a try by rubbing it on a scrap of maple and it turn out great. so I finished the stock with it and honestly I like the finish more than anything else I ever used. I have no idea how long that spar was sitting on the shelf, but I do know it was a long time, because it was way in the back of my varnish storage cabinet. it was pretty much like BLO with Jap drier in it, that has half cured before being used, or something like a thick French Polish. I assume it would take a long time to reproduce. small amounts in a can and heated up might speed the process, I haven't tried it yet , but it surely did produce a nice finish that had that classic feel of filled pores and good hard surface, but not built up.
