Instructions for HeliaCARE wood care products from HeliaCARE

Instructions as well as tips and tricks for HeliaCARE wood surface treatment and wood protection.

WOOD maintenance oils selection

In the "wood" product series, HeliaCARE offers five different oils for wood surface treatment and wood protection:

	Fine woodwork	Allergen free	Heavy duty	varnish	Linseed oil
Premium oil	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Main feature	Furniture care / woodwork	allergen free (*)	for floors & ceilings	robust	Terraces / balconies
Moving into the wood	outstanding	outstanding	very good	Well	Well
Duration of action with re-oiling	60 min	60 min	120 min	120 min	120 min
Drying time (min)	3 hours	3 hours	over night	2 days	over night
Number of uses	2	2	2-3	3	2
Use indoors	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	light smell
Outdoor area	–	–	conditional	Well	very good
Food safe	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
food grade	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
100% BIO ingredients	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Smell (not chemical)	–	–	Slightly nutty for 4 hours	up to 5 days	up to 2 days
Resilience	normal	normal	normal-difficult	heavy	heavy
Made of:	certified BIO oil seeds	certified BIO oil seeds	certified BIO oil seeds	certified BIO oil seeds	certified Organic flaxseed
Regional	Yes(**)	Yes (**)	Yes (**)	Yes (**)	Yes (**)

Availability	immediately	immediately	immediately	2023	immediately

HeliaCARE Wood overview wood oil
(*) additional laboratory test to exclude allergens 100%
(**) Regionality depends on the harvest. In the event of bad harvests or shortages, we fall back on the surrounding regions

HeliaCARE 3 component system of oil, balm and wax:

Our 3-component system provides you with the best possible care and protection for your wooden surfaces.

The idea behind this is that in the first step the oil is sucked deep into the wood, filling the pores and powerfully emphasizing the wood grain. The wood grain can take several days to be emphasized (darken). The balsam has been developed to bring fine wax particles into the pores and thus create a wax plug from the inside, i.e. in the wood. A protective layer is then applied to the wood with the pure wood wax, which has a velvety sheen.

Do you always have to use the 3 component system?

No, you can also use wood oil, wood balm and wood wax individually. Basically please note: wood balm and wood wax contain beeswax. If beeswax has been applied to the wood surface, wood oil will later find it very difficult to penetrate the pores. Our recommendation is: in most cases only wood oil is sufficient. In the area of contact with food (cutting boards, kitchen countertops, ...) and children's toys (saliva contact), balm should also be used. If you want to darken your wood as little as possible, you can simply apply our wood wax. The most beautiful surface for particularly beautiful pieces of wood is always obtained by using our 3-component system.

Please always try out pieces of wood. Every wood reacts differently.

IMPORTANT: Treatment of wooden surfaces which have already been treated with other products

Attention: this information only applies if you intend to let the wood care oil soak in deeply! Then please note: if your table, piece of furniture or your kitchen worktop has already been treated with products from other manufacturers, please note the following: In the event that pure natural oils were previously used without the addition of hardening agents (e.g. olive oil), the use of our products is unproblematic. If your pieces of wood have already been treated with a product that hardens more quickly in the wood pores (e.g. hard wax oils and hard waxes), then you have the following situation: at the points where the original coating / treatment is still intact, our products cannot get into that Penetration of wood as the seal is still active. Our products can penetrate a little or very well in the places where the original treatment has already been worn out over the years. The result is a non-uniform, rather blotchy, surface. If this happens, the only thing that helps is to sand the entire surface until all of the remains of the original sealant have been removed. If you don't know what products were previously applied and you have the option to sand it off, this is always a better choice. The result is furniture that looks like new.

Tip: if the sandpaper immediately clogs (sticks) when sanding, switch to the slowest speed (the less heat is developed, the less smear the sanding discs will be).

Incidentally, you have this problem not only with our products, but with all products on the market, because the areas that are still well sealed do not allow the new care product to penetrate. If the old seal (e.g. hard wax oil with synthetic additives) is still completely and evenly over the entire surface, you can apply our products directly to it.

Use of HeliaCARE oils for new wood surfaces:

Grind the workpiece sufficiently fine. We recommend sanding up to at least grit P240. If you want particularly smooth surfaces, then sand with P320 grit and then with P400 grit. After sanding, remove the sanding dust with a damp cloth or sponge so that the wood surface is slightly wetted. The water should NOT stand on the wood! Let it dry for an hour to allow the wood fibers to stand up. Then the final touch with the finest sandpaper that you used before soaking.

Before applying the oil, make sure that the surface is free of dust (vacuum or compressed air).

Apply the oil generously and distribute it with your fingers, a cotton cloth or a brush. After 15 minutes, start checking whether there are any dull areas where the oil has already been absorbed - cover these areas again with plenty of oil. Also try to rub the oil in the direction of the grain.

The longer you add oil to dull areas, the more oil can penetrate the wood. You can end this process after 30 minutes and rub the surface dry or oil again and again for up to 3 days. Since we have optimized our products precisely for this, i.e. very long open pot lives, you can bring an above-average amount of oil into the wood and thus achieve a massive accentuation (emphasis on the wood grain with darkening).

When you've got enough oil in the wood, use a paper towel to rub off any excess oil. Then rub the remaining oil off the surface again with a dry cloth. The surface is dry after approx. 2 hours.

Professionals told us from the good old days: "Natural oils are applied daily in the first week, weekly in the first month, and then oiled monthly". We would like to join this unchallenged.

Smart Repair:

If a point on the wood surface has been damaged over time, for example a water stain or a rough spot, this can be repaired without any problems. Make sure that the surface is really dry (after water stains caused by standing water, allow to dry for at least 2 weeks), then apply a HeliaCARE PREMIUM oil (preferably the same one that was previously treated) and use a very fine sandpaper Sand in the sanding block in the direction of the grain. ONLY IN THE FIBER DIRECTION and NOT WITH A MACHINE !!!!!

In the case of veneered surfaces, please only have a specialist grind it. They are sanded through very quickly, especially on the edges!
If you don't want to sand, you can use the HeliaCARE wood balm instead of the oil and rub it in vigorously in the direction of the grain with a cotton cloth. You can also use a kitchen sponge with the rough side (only light pressure) as a substitute for sandpaper.

Report to us in Forum what experiences you have had and thus help others to design great projects.

Visit our support forum

Wood balm

The HeliaCARE wood balm requires the same preparation as described above under wood oils. The balm should not be applied with kitchen paper, as in this case too much balm will be absorbed by the kitchen paper. It is better to use a cotton cloth and keep this for multiple use. This is how you save the most.

The balm should be applied very sparingly after oiling. So first apply the oil, as described above, and then apply the balm very sparingly. The oil should be applied generously so that all open pores are soaked up, but the balm sparingly, as it works in the wood and pulls parts of the wax into the wood, but generally does not work as deeply as the HeliaCARE Premium Wood Oils .

The idea is that the balm is significantly more fluid / softer than the wax and thus has the opportunity to pull parts of the wax into the wood. This closes the pores like a kind of plug (in the wood). The wax in the next step is applied to the wood and does not work in the wood.

Special cases:

I want to fire up and seal a workpiece as quickly as possible with as few work steps as possible.
How do I proceed?
Answer: This is exactly what the balm was developed for. The combination of oil / wax in a soft consistency enables great results with just one operation.

Does it make sense to use balm outdoors?
Answer: Conditional. If garden furniture (as an example) is not exposed to direct weather (rain), it can be treated with wax or balm. Looks good and sometimes the water runs off. At some point in direct rain, however, the water finds its way under the wax layer of balsam or wax and then the wood remains moist and mold stains (mold) can occur. The same thing happens when balm or wax is applied to damp wood. If that happens, that's not a big deal - see forum - but you can save yourself it.
In short: rather not outdoors.

Report to us in Forum what experiences you have had and thus help others to design great projects.

Wood wax

The HeliaCARE wood wax requires the same preparation as described above under wood oils. Then treat with balm, see above. The aim is to bring some wax into the wood with the balm, according to the HeliaCARE 3-component system.

Please apply the HeliaCARE wood wax very sparingly with a cotton cloth, ideally with a polishing machine for larger areas, and then let it dry overnight. Repeat the application, allow to dry again overnight and rub (polish) as dry as possible with kitchen paper. Wax back if necessary.

Does it make sense to use HeliaCARE wood wax outdoors?
Answer: Conditional. If garden furniture (as an example) is not exposed to direct weather (rain), it can be treated with wax or balm. Looks good and sometimes the water rolls off well. At some point in direct rain, however, the water finds its way under the wax layer of balsam or wax and then the wood remains moist and mold stains (mold) can occur. The same thing happens when balm or wax is applied to damp wood. If that happens, that's not a big deal - see forum - but you can save yourself it.
In short: rather not outdoors when direct weather hits the surface.

Do you always have to oil and apply balm first?
Answer: No. If you do not want the workpiece to be fired up so strongly, i.e. not to darken it, it is advisable to just wax. But then there is no protection in the wood itself and you have to refresh the application from time to time.

Report to us in Forum what experiences you have had and thus help others to design great projects.

Visit our support forum

Tree balm / wound closure

Anyone who tends trees or large bushes in the garden themselves has the problem or the risk that when a branch is cut off, germs can get into the tree via the cut surface and damage it. Since sustainability starts at this point, we will bring a wound closure onto the market in 2022 that will improve precisely this problem. If you are interested, have experience or have questions, please feel free to contact us Forum Post. Thanks!

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