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Old May 5th, 2008, 06:48 PM   #42 (permalink)
RomanS
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Vienna, Austria
Age: 36
Posts: 2,699
If you want to get a shiny, lacquer-like finish with Tru Oil, like on the rosewood Tele I posted in the other thread you mentioned, I have to warn you that this will take LOTS of time & work...

That rosewood Tele of mine has about 20 to 25 coats of Tru Oil on it, and it is still far from perfect on close inspection; oh, and inbetween coats you have to wait at least half a day, so don't expect to be finished soon!

Some more tips: when you start finishing the body with tru oil, get some wet sanding paper, not the finest kind for final polishing, not to coarse, either - something in the 180 to 320 range; apply the Tru Oil liberally for the first coat, and while it is still wet, start sanding - you want to work up a slush of wood particles and Tru Oil, and you have to try to work that stuff into the open pores & grain of the wood; let it dry for at least a day, then start sanding back the ugly result wit some 250 to 400 grit paper; you'll have to do that two or three times, and it's not going to look pretty at first, but after a couple of times, most of the grain will have been sealed, and you'll have a flat surface.
Now you need to start applying the Tru Oil in the thinnest cots imaginable; some people recommend using your bare fingers - that did absolutely not work for me, I got very uneven, blotchy results with lots of runs; after some experimentation with brushes (-> uneven, streaky results), and various kinds of cloth, paper towels, etc. (-> made me find out that the concept of "lint-free" is pure fiction), I found that it worked best if I applied the Tru Oil with a sponge; I used regular kitchen sponges, like you use for cleaning dishes; you'll need lots, since they'll harden up once the Tru Oil inside them hardens, and they have to be soft so as not to leave any streaks; I also found that it helped if I thinned the Tru Oil a bit with boiled linseed oil (about 2 or 3 parts of Tru Oil per part of boiled linseed oil) - this helped me with applying thinner coats, because uncut Tru Oil is a bit thick andgets sticky very fast - and applying the coats as thin as posiible is the key to a great result here!
The wet finish tends to really attract airborne dust particles, so you'd better hang the body in the cleanest part of your house (eg. bathroom - run the shower really hot for a few minutes, the steam will get rid of some of the airborne dust); don't be tempted to remove any dust particles with your fingers while the Tru Oil is still wet - the resulting fingerprints and blotches will be hard to remove.
I did some sanding with 400 to 600 grit paper after every 3 or 4 coats, to get rid of said dust particles; but make sure you let the last coat dry at least 2 or 3 days before you do any sanding!
For the final coat I thinned the Tru Oil even more with boiled linseed oil, and applied the thinnest coat I could achieve, then let it dry fo about a week before I rubbed it down by hand (no more sanding of the final coat).
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