Treating pine to prevent oil leaking I'm in the process of preparing a pine wooden box to hold a large number of cardboard wallets for storing a card game collection, but there appears to be some oil or something like it inside the wood itself. When i have left some paper inside the box, it has gone slightly waxy and translucent. 

I am worried that leaving the cardboard wallets and the cards that will go inside them will also cause some damage to them. I was considering varnishing the box myself anyway, and was wondering if anyone knew if this would prevent any damage to the contents like I've described?

The box was made for me as a gift by my brother, and is made out of pine.
I've used water-based varnish to seal in resin leaking from pine in a bed base I made.  I applied several coats to the whole surface, but started with a couple of coats over just the sticky areas.  Before the first coat I scraped/sanded the surface and cleaned with methylated spirits (denatured alcohol).

This won't work well if it's actually oil that's leaking.  Pine can be oiled, including with vegetable oil for food use.  Most varnishes, even oil-based ones, won't work too well on top of this.  You may be able to remove a lot of the oil with meths though.  Drying it in an oven may also help.  Not too hot, and not if other areas are painted or glued, or have plastic fixings.