Thread: Sealing after tung oil

I'm making various sets of wood scales and have a question about what to use, if anything, after applying tung oil. I'm thinking of CA, but want to put the oil on first because I like how it penetrates the wood and brings out the figuring. Will CA penetrate as well or just coat the surface? The first set will be padauk and I sanded it to 800grit. Next sets will be yellowheart, zebrawood, bubinga, amboyna Burl, wenge, and ziricote. So a formula to use that would work well on all of these would be great. Thanks.

I was even thinking about doing one coat of oil(tung or Danish) and sealing with CA.

FWIW, I do one or the other, not both. I'm not sure it's really required, CA makes the wood look wet. As popped as I've ever seen grain.

I'd also wonder if the oil wouldn't interfere with the CA?

Maybe some more experienced members will chime in.

Tung oil will harden "in" the wood & give you all the protection needed but you should avoid water on it till it does ~ maybe a week or so. That said I avoid water on my scales any way.
CA will harden "on" the wood & is not as easy to maintain if scratched etc.. but certainly can look great too.
I wouldn't bother to do both.

So it would seem to me then that softer, more porous woods would benefit by applying TO, and harder woods would do better with CA?

No, Tung works great on hardwoods as it quickly fills the dense grain. Especially if rubbed in as a light dust slurry at about 600 grit.
Softwoods would benefit from a sealer coat first or use up more oil or CA tho CA dries quick.

Are we talking 100% real Tung oil or Tung oil finish like miniwax or Formby's tung oil finish. There's a huge difference in 100% pure Tung Oil compared to the commercially sold Tung Oil which is actually a generic term which has been liberally borrowed by paint-and-varnish makers to describe the expected result of using their preparations — which may or may not actually contain any tung oil at all..

Good point Max.
Don't go rubbing Tung oil "finishes" with sand paper, only pure oil is safe for burnishing in.

What I have us real tung oil. I picked it up from a woodworking show along with some other oils and finishes. He explained the differences and I went with real tung oil rather than tung oil finish stuff.

Think about what the end result is that you are looking for and start with that finish. Mixing and matching has it's place, but most finishes are designed to stand alone. I think if you try to do CA over oil, you may end up with issues getting them to adhere to one another.

Oil finishes bring out the luster and depth of certain woods. Some wood dont' really benefit from them. If you have a lovely walnut burl, the oil will be a perfect choice. if it is a non-descript wood, you will spend lots of time maintaining the oil finish when you could have put on a shellac, varnish or CA that would hold up much better.

I love oil finishes (i'm a woodworker, BTW) but I don't use them on scales because of durability issues.

Goog