Yes Jean, you're absolutely correct:- linseed oil, either raw or boiled, if allowed to dry by itself will leave an ugly sticky residue on the surface of the wood.
But you do not leave it to dry by itself, you hand rub the oil into the wood.
I have finished a number of gunstocks with raw linseed oil, I still have two guns with this finish that I applied near enough to 50 years ago. They've never been sticky and they still look good.
You hand rub.
However, it is not always practical to hand rub, especially in the case of something that is heavily carved. In this sort of situation you can immerse the entire piece in the oil, and it will usually take up the checking. As with hand rubbing, it takes time. A lot of time. I've got a 1930's Bali carving undergoing this treatment at the moment, I expect it will probably take until the end of the year before the checking takes up. When you take it out of the oil you need to dry it off as thoroughly as possible and brush to get into the carving, and you repeat this periodically until the oil no longer seeps out of the wood.
Where I have restored a carving by hand rubbing the oil it has mostly taken months of daily rubbing to take up the cracks.
None of this is a fast process, but it works.
The use of linseed oil in restoration and protection of wood is nothing new. It has been used in my family for four generations at least, and you will find mention of its use in books from the 19th century dealing with this subject. A linseed oil finish is the ideal finish for a wooden threshold, or external wooden stairs, it also has applications in other exposed timber. It is the perfect maintenance treatment for wooden carpenter's tools, such as mould planes & smoothing planes.
There is one problem with linseed oil, and that is that wood with an oil finish needs to be maintained --- its not a do once and forget job like shellac, or a commercial finish like Danish Oil or Truoil. In a humid climate wood treated with an oil finish will grow mildew. An oil finish is perhaps one of the best for wood articles that are in use, but for something that is to be stored, it does require the occasional rub with a few drops of oil in the palm of the hand.
In fact, just about any oil will help dry wood. One oil that perhaps should be mentioned is olive oil, that many of us would have readily available in the kitchen. Olive oil is an excellent leather cleaner and preservative, and is also very kind to wood, however it lacks the protective qualities that raw linseed has. The beauty of raw linseed is that it contains microscopic impurities that do not penetrate the wood, but lodge in the grain of the wood, over time these harden to give a protective coating.
Incidentally, old cracked horn can often be restored by soaking in baby oil, again , its no fast fix. You need patience.
Again I agree with you Jean:- natural wax should not be used on a surface with detailed carving, for precisely the reasons you mention. However, it is possible to buy good quality aerosol funiture wax that contains a mixture of waxes, including carnauba. Again, the manner of use of this is the key to a satisfactory finish. You spray it on, and then brush with a soft brush, continuing the brushing until the wax is evenly distributed and dry.
Speaking for myself, if this hilt under discussion were mine, I doubt that I would do anything to it other than to put a few drops of oil into the palm of hand, rub my palms together, and then rub the hilt until I could see no oil on my palms or on the hilt. I'd do this a few times over a few days, and finish with aerosol spray wax as mentioned above, and good brush with a soft brush. The cracking would need to be very severe for me to even consider trying to take it up.
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