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First Build - "Lucifer"

#1,081
TerribleTim68 said:
Okay, question time again. Will the Tru-Oil ever reach a point where it is smooth and wont need the steel wool treatment? I like the shiny!
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Absolutely, you can get a high gloss and with a thick enough coat, it will buff up really well. Realistically though in our climate with the humidity and all, I find it takes 20+ coats to get there. It really does take around a month to get it to the point of getting cured and buffed to a high shine. This is one of the reasons I like wipe on poly formulations. They get there faster with less coats and buff to a higher gloss. :D Tru oil is great though, I'm not knocking it. Super easy to use and 99.9% of the time you get good results. :thumbsup:
 
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#1,082
Just a bit of "danger Will Robinson" between the first item and the other two, so perhaps keep the "play by Christmas" urge damped down a touch? No point in Borking nearly 2 years of work to be "done" before two years, if you can be un-Borked and "done" in two years and a bit.

TerribleTim68 said:
My previous problems with Tru-Oil was probably rushing to put too many coats on too quickly in an effort to "be done".
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TerribleTim68 said:
I could be playing it "relatively soon", at least before the new year. Like I said, I'd love to be making noise by Christmas if possible. I've got all my woodturning stuff done for the time being and can take a break from that, so I can focus on this for a bit.

Honestly, a part of me is looking at that 2 year mark fast approaching and my brain is saying "You need to get this done before that date!"
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Beej said:
It really does take around a month to get it to the point of getting cured and buffed to a high shine.
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#1,084
Beej said:
Absolutely, you can get a high gloss and with a thick enough coat, it will buff up really well. Realistically though in our climate with the humidity and all, I find it takes 20+ coats to get there. It really does take around a month to get it to the point of getting cured and buffed to a high shine. This is one of the reasons I like wipe on poly formulations. They get there faster with less coats and buff to a higher gloss. :D Tru oil is great though, I'm not knocking it. Super easy to use and 99.9% of the time you get good results. :thumbsup:
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Also, Wipe-On poly doesn't color the wood as much, in my experience. Easier to sand through, though...
 
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#1,089
Rôckhewer said:
Scuff between coats if needed ...to remove shiny spots or dust nibs.
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Allow me to emphasize ^^^ " if needed "
Only if you have weird semi tacky-shiny spots from leaving too much standing oil ...after rub-down.
Or ....dust/ foreign object/ splotchyness...
deff said:
Yes, but honestly I never used steel wool, only a polishing rag.
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Yeah... don't cut down that buildup...if you don't have to.
 
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#1,090
Okay, third coat is on. I did not steel wool this one between coats. It feels pretty smooth already and has an amazing lustre to it. The shimmer in this purpleheart is nuts. I will keep going on coats each day, I just don’t really know how to tell when enough coats is enough.

Also, someone indicated I should let the “finished thing” cure for a month or something? Any advice there? Do I coat till I decide it is enough, and then just let it cure for a certain amount of time? Then buff?
 
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#1,091
Since you moved it indoors, can you squeeze in 2 coats/day? One first thing in the morning and one at night?
After a dozen or so coats, then let it sit for a few weeks-month (whatever is recommended) and then buff?
Sounds like it's thin and takes a lot of coats to build thick enough to where it's safe to buff out.
 
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#1,092
TerribleTim68 said:
Okay, third coat is on. I did not steel wool this one between coats. It feels pretty smooth already and has an amazing lustre to it. The shimmer in this purpleheart is nuts. I will keep going on coats each day, I just don’t really know how to tell when enough coats is enough.

Also, someone indicated I should let the “finished thing” cure for a month or something? Any advice there? Do I coat till I decide it is enough, and then just let it cure for a certain amount of time? Then buff?
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When I do tru oil, I don't touch it between every coat. Just a very, very gentle scuff every 3 or 4 coats. The more you scuff or sand it, the longer it will take. Scuffing only really needs to happen once in a while to pull out dust nibs or even out any spots that have issues. If you scuff or sand too frequently, it'll take more coats to get to the glossy finish you want.

Generally once you have enough coats on, you need to let it cure enough to get really hard, before you buff. If you buff right away, it won't get quite as shiny, and it may actually shrink back a little and cause issues (sinking into grain, things like that). Letting it sit until it's absolutely fully cured and hard will avoid that.

I'll second what Beej said above. The number of coats required and curing time were a big part of what drove me to switch from tru oil to poly. I did a LOT of furniture work with tru oil and a bunch of instruments and really loved it. But poly can be just as easy to apply, it builds quicker so you need fewer coats, it cures faster so you can recoat quickly, it's more durable, and you can buff it out after a couple days vs a couple weeks. For satin or semigloss, I can go from bare wood to assembled playable instrument in maybe 3 or 4 days if I'm in a hurry. For gloss, maybe a week. Tru oil is more like 2 weeks for satin to a month plus for gloss.
 
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#1,094
Yeah, I almost didn't post that because I didn't want it to come off as trying to say that you should have used something else. Tru oil is a really great product, it's just slow. A gloss tru oil finish on grain filled wood can really shine when buffed up. And it does have an advantage in repairability since it tends to melt into itself pretty well. If you ever get a bad scuff you can wipe some more tru oil on and then buff it out again.
 
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#1,095
TerribleTim68 said:
Good info. Ultimately it came down to "I have this already". I know everyone keeps saying "there are better easier faster products" but I don't have them on hand and with my truck facing a couple thousand dollar shop bill right before Christmas, I have this already.
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No sweat. You got this. Just take the time it needs to knock it out of the park, rather than fouling out in the bottom of the 9th (or is it the 17th?) after playing a spectacular game.

If time is available, you can start the next thing you want to start while you wait for finish to dry. Preferably not making sawdust in the same room, though.
 
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#1,096
So, as I continue to ask far too many questions about Tru-Oil:

How are you guys cleaning the rag you use to apply it? I'm using a cotton cloth, like a piece of an old tee shirt. Is this a throw-away item, or is there a way to reuse it? I tried even keeping it in a ziplock bag with all the air sucked out and it still hardens.
 
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#1,097
TerribleTim68 said:
So, as I continue to ask far too many questions about Tru-Oil:

How are you guys cleaning the rag you use to apply it? I'm using a cotton cloth, like a piece of an old tee shirt. Is this a throw-away item, or is there a way to reuse it? I tried even keeping it in a ziplock bag with all the air sucked out and it still hardens.
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I use a very tiny swatch of cloth, and after it's been used to apply some TO, I let it sit flat outside until it completely dries, then it can be discarded without worry of spontaneous combustion (not kidding, that's really a thing). I've found that even an old t-shirt can have either nasty old skin oils embedded, ancient deodorant and/or still gets tiny microfibers left in your finish. Mostly not a major issue, but I prefer to use the sleeves and back of an old cotton dress shirt instead. The tighter weave and near-nil fibers on the surface leave a smoother surface in the finish that promotes it to lay down a bit better. I make a little "fad" out of a small ball of t-shirt material wrapped up in a square of dress shirt material and then use that to apply it. The fad is quite small, the square of material is maybe 3x3. Less finish gets absorbed into it and wasted after the application. :thumbsup:
 
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#1,098
Beej said:
I use a very tiny swatch of cloth, and after it's been used to apply some TO, I let it sit flat outside until it completely dries, then it can be discarded without worry of spontaneous combustion (not kidding, that's really a thing). I've found that even an old t-shirt can have either nasty old skin oils embedded, ancient deodorant and/or still gets tiny microfibers left in your finish. Mostly not a major issue, but I prefer to use the sleeves and back of an old cotton dress shirt instead. The tighter weave and near-nil fibers on the surface leave a smoother surface in the finish that promotes it to lay down a bit better. I make a little "fad" out of a small ball of t-shirt material wrapped up in a square of dress shirt material and then use that to apply it. The fad is quite small, the square of material is maybe 3x3. Less finish gets absorbed into it and wasted after the application. :thumbsup:
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So it is totally a throw-away?

Can those blue shop towels be used?
thumbnail.jpg
 
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