Walk into most paint shops in Australia and almost everything on the shelf for timber is acrylic. It is quick, it washes up in water and it is what most painters are used to. Linseed oil paint is the older technology — the finish that protected timber windows, doors and weatherboards for centuries before plastics existed. Neither is “wrong”, but they behave very differently on wood, and the difference matters most on the parts of a house that move, get wet and get repainted.
Acrylic paint dries as the water evaporates, leaving a flexible plastic film that sits on top of the surface. It relies on that film staying intact and well bonded. When moisture gets in behind it — through a crack, an end grain or an unpainted edge — the film can blister and peel, and the timber underneath stays wet for longer.
Linseed oil paint works the other way around. The oil soaks into the timber before it hardens, so the paint is anchored in the wood rather than lying on it. Allbäck paint is made from purified, boiled Swedish linseed oil and mineral pigment, with no solvents and a dry matter content of 100% — what goes on the brush stays on the timber. The paint film stays open to moisture, which lets the wood dry out instead of trapping water behind a skin.
This is the biggest practical difference. An acrylic finish usually fails by cracking and flaking, which means scraping and sanding back to sound paint before you can recoat.
Linseed oil paint fails slowly and gently. Over the years it loses its sheen, then starts to chalk on the surface. At that stage you wash it, and either wipe on a little boiled linseed oil or linseed oil wax to bring the sheen back, or put on another coat of paint. There is no strip-back. Allbäck rates its paint at 20–25 years before recoating on a well-prepared surface — read more in looking after linseed oil paint.
Here acrylic wins on speed. It is touch dry in an hour or two and can often be recoated the same day. Linseed oil paint needs around 24 hours between coats at room temperature with good ventilation and moderate humidity, and longer when it is cold or damp. It should go on at 14 °C or warmer, onto timber with no more than 14% moisture. On the other hand, you can paint in full sun with linseed oil paint, which is often a problem with acrylics. See linseed oil paint drying time for what speeds it up.
A litre of Allbäck paint covers around 15–20 m² per coat, because it is applied in thin, fully covering coats of roughly 100 microns. The tin price is higher than a supermarket acrylic, but the price per square metre is competitive — and over a 20-year cycle with no strip-back the comparison usually favours linseed oil. Work out your own job with the paint calculator guide.
Allbäck paint is solvent-free, with VOCs under 5 mg/L, and cleans up with linseed soap and water. There is a mild linseed smell while it cures. Acrylics are also water-based and low in solvents, so both are reasonable indoors; the difference is more about how the finish performs on timber than about fumes.
Never mix acrylic primers, petroleum products or solvents into linseed oil paint — they are not compatible.
Choose acrylic when speed is everything, the surface is already acrylic and in good condition, or the job is short-term. Choose linseed oil paint for timber windows and doors, weatherboards, heritage joinery and anything you would rather maintain than strip again in ten years. It is also the natural choice on heritage buildings.
On timber it typically lasts longer between full repaints because it wears away slowly instead of peeling. Allbäck quotes 20–25 years on a properly prepared surface with at least three coats.
It hardens by reacting with oxygen in the air rather than by evaporation. Warmth, airflow, light and thin coats all speed it up.
Allbäck makes 32 mineral colours that can be mixed with each other for thousands of shades — see mixing your own Allbäck colour or browse the colours.
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