Painting over old linseed oiled wood.

[Rik DS]

Looking at the answers to a previous paint questions and marvelling at the response Here's another one.

The interior of a larch planked boat has been coated in red lead/boiled linseed oil mixture. It has been dry for 2 years and we now need to put a conventional paint system on top.

Any suggestions??

[imported_Jimmy]

I think you should just be able to paint over red lead and linseed oil with normal marine enamel /alkyd paint. Red lead primer is one of the prefered primers with wooden boats and linseed oil should be compatible (I have varnished over boiled linseed oil and turpentine treated wood and it seems to be holding up so far). The real question is whether you actually need to paint the interior at all. There are many good arguments for leaving the wood as paint-free as possible.

[Bob Smalser]

The only issue I can think of is adhesion failure usually from linseed that hasn't had enuf time to dry, which shouldn't be a problem in your case.

If this is for mostly cosmetic reasons because your linseed has blackened with UV light exposure, then a thin wash of traditional alkyd paint can make it look better without a heavy paint buildup.

I'd power wash it first to remove the dirt and loose particles.

[JormaS]

Anything that has been dry for two years would need some light sanding before painting on top of it. Sanding red lead paint...Some caution recommended.