I ended up trying polyvine wood oil
https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pr ... e-wood-oil . This, according to the blurb is good for furniture, floors, exterior and interior joinery, fences and cladding. Alarm bells should have rung reading that range, but they didn't.
It is supposed to sink in not form a surface layer. Right ............ the first coat was brilliant - it sunk in completely, and dried dead flat and hard quite quickly. The second coat - nightmare. Three weeks later it was still soft to the touch (indoors, dry and quite warm) and very streaky - some streaks dead flat, some quite glossy.
It isn't a hardwax oil (it doesn't claim to be), it's a varnish. It might be an extremely good varnish for some applications, but furniture isn't one of them. Thankfully this was only on shelves made from oak worktop.
Back to Blanchon, I think.
