Tung oil not drying on silky oak

[JB]

Wondering if anyone has had the same experience. I finish most furniture with pure tung oil with no problems (3 to five coats with 2 days drying in between each coat) but I can't get the first coat of tung oil (mixed 50/50 with natural turps) to dry on some silky oak stools, after four days! The timber is mostly quarter cut which with its sheeny surface might be adding to the problem. Any suggestions from experience would be welcome.

ps. I did have a similar problem but not so extreme using tung on blackwood, but that seemed to be due more to the oil penetrating deeply into the very open grained boards I used, and then repeatedly seeping to the surface over several days.

[Wizened of Oz]

No response, Jamie?
Well, for what my limited experience is worth, I have always favoured tung oil as a finish, or as a first coat to "pop" the grain, or mixed with talc as a grain filler. I think it's drying is too slow unaided, and I've always added driers (Terebine) to speed it up.
Never experienced any problem drying on Silky Oak (or any other timber).

[JB]

Thanks Brian. Could you tell me where you get terebine, and what ratio you add it to the tung oil?

The tung on the silky oak stools still hadn't dried after five days, so I wiped them with turps (to remove excess) then applied Danish Oil. I figured that would either seal the tung, or the driers in the Danish would help to dry the tung. Anyway, it worked a treat (dried hard) and I'll now proceed with second coat of Danish.

Thanks again for the tip.

[Wizened of Oz]

Hi Jamie

Any specialist paint store would have terebine. A litre should last a long time.
Feast Watson give a ratio of 1:16 but I've never found it necessary to use that much. In tung oil I use more like 1:50.

Posting this has made me recall the first time I used tung oil and terebine. It would have been 1955 and, with all the confidence of youth, I was restoring a large silky oak table for my parents. My mother had bought it second hand about the time I was born and the top was showing the battle scars of a family of 6 children; thousands of meals consumed, eons of homework, years of card and board games. The old varnish on the turned legs and skirt had crazed.
I stripped and sanded it and popped the grain with a grain filler of tung oil, terebine, whiting and red ochre, all things you would buy at any paint department then.

[Christos]

.....The tung on the silky oak stools still hadn't dried after five days, so I wiped them with turps (to remove excess) then applied Danish Oil. I figured that would either seal the tung, or the driers in the Danish would help to dry the tung. Anyway, it worked a treat (dried hard) and I'll now proceed with second coat of Danish.....

After thinking about what you have come up with it seems so simple.

[JB]

Thank you for the details of terebine mix Brian.

And I have to ask...what's 'popping the grain'?

[Wizened of Oz]

And I have to ask...what's 'popping the grain'?

Just an expression for enhancing the look of the grain pattern, which an initial coat of oil does. Even more so on open grained woods if a tinted oil-based grain filler is used.
Try it on a scrap, shellac finish with and without an initial coat of oil and you will know what we mean.
Word of warning, though. Oil can turn very dark woods quite muddy-looking so test first on these.