Posted by Wayne Parham [ 66.137.58.85 ] on April 08, 2005 at 13:30:07:
I made a little sign for GPAF and I'm wiping tung oil on it to finish it. So I want to hear from the experts if I'm doing it right.
What I did was to ask Brad to give me a piece of scrap walnut from one of the midhorns, and I took it to a CNC shop to cut my logo into it. I put a sheet of adhesive plastic on it as a mask and had them cut through that so I could paint the letters silver. Then I peeled off the mask to expose the walnut, and I'm rubbing tung oil into it. I thought it might be a good practice for me, since the only time I ever used tung oil was for touch up. This time, I wanted to see what uyou guys do to finish something properly.
It's like wiping on vegetable oil or something, almost like water. I just use a cloth and wipe the stuff on in a very thin coat. I watch the reflection at an angle to see when the coat is uniform, then I go away for a few minutes. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, I come back and do it again.
The first coat darkened the grain a little, just like I had moistened it with water. But the grain absorbs it and makes it look like you haven't done anything except darken it a tad. It took probably 20 coats before I could even tell it was holding a finish. Now it's starting to get a little shiny, but it seems like it will take 100 coats like this. That's no problem, it's easy, I just wipe it on. It's no more difficult than wiping a counter with a sponge. I rub it in a little, but it isn't like polishing a car or anything, it's more like just wiping it on.
Is that what I'm supposed to do? It looks good, but is this the way tung oil is generally used?
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