Applying the Tung Oil Finish

Hands up all those who thought this blog had been left for dead! (Yep. Me, too.)

To pick up the story where we left off, the moment of truth has arrived and the first coat of tung oil is ready to go on. Thinking through the process, though, what do I do with a coated-all-over guitar body? I can't lay it down on anything without the marking the surface at the points of contact. The solution was to suspend the body above the work bench from a short, fat "neck". Any hoarder's shed will have all the bits and pieces necessary:

• 1 short length of framing pine (firewood pile) made to a big clearance fit in the neck pocket of the bass
• 1 length of angle iron (old bed frame)
• 1 eye bolt
• 1 threaded hook, washers and plastic-insert nut
• trestle stands

The application of the oil is very straightforward, which was one of its selling points. I used a clean strip of an old tee-shirt. Just pour a small amount onto the folded up cloth and then wipe onto the wood. The timber soaked up most of the oil that was applied. The colour change on the Bubinga was significant - to a much deeper red, and highlighted the change in grain direction. The result looked a lot like tiger stripes. Leaving the result to dry off, usually over night, it was rubbed back with a second cloth to remove any excess.

 From the photo above there a a couple of points to make comment on.

The first point is that tung oil rags should always be hung out to dry when application has finished. Rags have been know to self-combust when left scrunched up or in a damp pile. Prior to disposal, they are supposed to be washed first.

 The second point is, keep the tung oil can threads clean! The reason there is a juice bottle labelled "tung oil" and a tung oil can with piercings in the lid is because the can lid seized on with the remnant from pouring onto the rag.

The application process was repeated a total of fourteen times to get to the finished result. Both the Bubinga and the Swamp Ash behaved differently to the veneer samples in that no stray fibres in the surface lifted through the absorption of the oil, and so no sanding between coats was needed.

The neck received the same treatment, getting a similar number of coats of tung oil. The Wenge turning a beautiful chocolate brown. The hardest part of the whole exercise was waiting between coats to get the oil properly dry. Depending on the weather, which was tending to be come cold and damp, sometimes I left several days before rubbing back with the second cloth before applying the next coat.

The finished body is shown below. Pretty happy with how it turned out.