Oil Finish and Tassie Blackwood

[Luke Maddux]

I've had this happen a couple of times now.

I am a big fan of oil finish. I occasionally use other stuff but for the most part I use a pre-bottled tun oil mixture, the name and brand of which I am happy to disclose via PM but would rather not mention in an open forum.

I use Blackwood a lot for various things, typically sanded to 400 or 600 grit. I've noticed that some of the time after applying the first coat of oil, I have to continue wiping te excess for a really long time as it appears to be sweating (best word I can think of) out the oil from the pores in the grain for a considerable amount of time following application. I actually failed to notice it the first time it happened and I had to resand that piece. It basically dries in a really unsightly, random way and looks, quite frankly, like [expletive].

any idea what is happening and what I can do to fix it?

[LGS]

Hi Luke,

Excess oil is probably the issue. You could try using less oil on the first pass and wipe off the excess then see what the finish is like. I use a hard burnishing technique which you can see here (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=166948) Below are some pics of Tassie Blackwood finished in this manner.

Regards,

Rob

[Nanigai]

I'm no expert on this Luke but if you rub on a couple coats of dewaxed shellac first you will probably find you will get a much more even finish and it will also have the effect of "popping the grain" as well.
If you flood the surface and let it soak in its going to keep coming to the surface for a while and needs monitoring so as Rob said maybe less is more.
If you use the shellac first you only need to rub on a small amount in a couple of coats to get a fabulous finish.

Are you using pure tung oil or tung oil finish from a big box store? There is quite a difference as some blended tung oil products have lots of additives driers etc to reduce costs.
Pure tung is a great product for this type of finish.
Cheers,
Ian