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Another tung oil question

Alan Weinberg

Alan Weinberg

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Does anyone soak their work in tung oil instead of just putting on a coat for 30-60 minutes and then wiping it off? Ron Kent used to do that for 24 or more hours per coat—and did 50 or more coats. Seems prohibitive in cost needing a gallon or more of tung oil—and time. Wonder if you could get by just using a big baggie with tung oil in it. (Info re his technique from www.ronkent.com)
 
One of the drawbacks to tung oil is that it takes quite a while to cure. If you totally saturate the wood with tung oil, it might never cure. I have more problems from overdoing it with oil finishes that too little. It's also hard to see a benefit to doing so.
 
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Ron Kent did not use Polymerizing Tung Oil, but Varathane natural Danish oil, probably with a varnish mix, and called it a Tung like coating, doing this many times for a buildup.

If you use Polymerizing Tung Oil and let it sit in the air and let it drip off before dipping it again, in his open100 gallon vat of this oil mix, it will get all rubbery and hardens up in less than the six month time it took for his NIP turnings to harden and complete.

He also used this process on NIP vessels, as a open grain wood, with very thin walls it will soak the oil up, he had to use a slow hardening oil to have this work.
 
We have a guy in our club that soaks all his bowls in tung oil for 3 days! Then he wipes them down every day for the next 6 months. They look gorgeous and he sells every one of them. In fact, he always has back orders for his bowls. He buys his tung oil in a 55 gallon barrel. His drying room is almost as big as his shop and it is filled with racks of bowls, going through the curing process. Quite the operation. . .
 
From ronkent.com, “The key element of this process is not how long it soaks but how many times, and drying-time is an integral component of the cycle. By the tenth cycle . . . “ And, “My ‘finishing’ process consists of multiple cycles of oil-soak/sandpaper/dry/wait. Typical vessel may undergo as many as fifty such cycles, over a four-to-six month period.”

He did indeed use Varathane natural Danish-type oil.

“The vessel is thoroughly drenched with the tung-type oil, applied with very fine sandpaper. The process is performed on the grating.” So, evidently, the vessels weren’t continually soaked in his 100 gallon vat.
 
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