Oh? I had always thought that the only application for boiled Linseed was for applying to ones Cricket Bat (don't ask why I don't know). However I guess they were still boiling it when my Scots pal formed his views on its inflammability.

The boiled Linseed does have a reputation for being very sticky, and Rudy's point about drywall dust is well made.

The other winning factor is what has been described as the self-healing nature of the finish, to me this means that the timber can be dented knocked scratched or dinged, with out the change in colour that you get with finishes that don't penetrate deeply. This is very important because rather than becoming tatty (prime example look at bar room /institutional furniture that has been coated with cellulose type finishes), these timbers start to aquire the patina of age.

The fact that you can achieve surface penetration with an oil-based finish on green timber may account for my perception that this controls the rate and nature of the drying out of those timbers. I believe that it slows down and reduces the incidence and occurrence of shakes and shrinkage.

The following is entirely conjecture, so if you know I'm wrong don't hesitate to say so!

If the oil partially seals the surface, then the migration of moisture from the wetter center to the dryer outside must be slowed, the moisture gradient flatter, therefore the internal drying stresses less severe. If you accept that the drying stresses are tangental, the outer growth rings drying over the wetter inner rings, Then if the moisture gradient is less steep, there will be less of a tendency for radial shakes to occur and there could be less compression / deformation of the inner rings reducing the degree of shrinkage as the cells collapse.

This is a theory put up for debate, and is based on my personal observations, not of Timberframes but of other (often large) "artifacts" in English Oak, Scots Elm, and Welsh Beech.