Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

[emaccarthy]

I am building a supertrat from blank warmoth parts. The body is alder and I really want to do an oil finish. My inspiration came from these guitars.

http://www.themusiczoo.com/product/...ecycled-Redwood-San-Dimas-HH-Electric-Guitar/

I know its not the same wood but I really like the look of the finish and was thinking along the lines of either a Tru Oil or Tung Oil. I know alder doesn't have the most distinct grain so anything I can do to help accent it while retaining the look of pure wood is my goal. I also want it to age well look more broken in and vintage as years go on. Also I have no facilities for anything fancy. I am pretty much restricted to rubbing oil on raw wood on my living room floor. So simple is good. Ideas? Suggestions?...

 

[emaccarthy]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

Just stumbled upon tinted danish oils. Thoughts on Danish oil vs Tung Oil vs Tru Oil would be nice. Post pictures if you have em

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

Boiled Linseed Oil or Tru-Oil

 

[PoorMan]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

Tru oil and polymerizing tung oil will achieve the look you are after. Both are stupid simple to apply.

Quite frankly I don't think you can go wrong with either.

I tung oiled an alder body once and it came out quite nice.

 

[CTN]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

I've used danish oil on the back of a maple neck and it was exceptionally easy to apply/build up layers.

Proved to be a very durable finish too. It's been like 10 or so years since I did that, and the neck is still silky smooth, with no sign of degradation of the hardened oil.

 

[PoorMan]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

You'll find the most common of these products are quite similar in most regards and yield very similar results. Almost all of them are blended wiping varnishes with either linseed or tung oil.

Tru Oil: Linseed varnish
Watco, Deft and Behlen Danish Oil: Linseed varnish
Minwax Tung oil finish: Tung oil varnish

 

[Snoogles]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

i'm still in the process of re-finishing my alder body DKMG (pictures to come soon). it has about 20-25 coats of tru-oil

its really simple, and you can get a fairly high-gloss shine at the end.
do a google search for finishing a guitar with tru oil or "high gloss guitar tru-oil" and there are a bunch of tutorials and forum posts around that have great tips

i'm a rank amature, and i'm getting fantastic results with it.
if you go with tru-oil i can give you pointers along the way

 

[FretFire]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

I'm doing a Tru-Oil finish on a project right now. It's ridiculously simple to apply and looks great. The neck is done after six coats. I'll start on the body when it arrives later this week, and plan to do 10-20 coats. The bottle of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil I got should be more than enough for both parts, and was less than $10 at Sportsman's Warehouse.

 

[crguti]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

How to do apply the coats? with a brush?

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

Linseed oil is easy to apply. Just mix it with turpentine 50/50 and apply as many coats as you want with a rag or paper towel. The turpentine thins the oil and makes it dry much faster. Worked great on this jazz bass neck:

the other cool one is French Polish. Thats just a blend of shellac flakes and methylated spirits ( i think you guys callit denatured alcohol over there). The more metho, the thinner the polish and the faster it dries. It makes a wonderful finish that is repairable if you get dings etc. The other cool thing about french polish is that it will craze over time, giving you that super cool aged look.

 

[CTN]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

How to do apply the coats? with a brush?

For oil finishes, I prefer using a clean rag. It's easier to apply thin coats with, and doesn't leave any imprints.

if you're going to use a brush, use a foam brush. It doesn't leave bristle imprints like a normal bristle brush does.

 

[Snoogles]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

How to do apply the coats? with a brush?

i wouldn't use a brush
put on a latex glove and use a lint-free cloth
i'll wrap the cloth around my index and middle finger (instead of balling it up and using it as a pad), because i like to use a bit of pressure to work it into the wood. this way you avoid drips. you'd get drips everywhere with a brush
also, you have more control of how, and where its applied.
avoid the temptation to glob the stuff on in heavy coats
you want to build up numerous thin coats. the first 5 or so applications wont look like anything is happening. just keep building up thin coats.
after a few base coats i like to give it a level sanding with 400 grit to remove the orange-peel texture
this sanding will remove some of the gloss. but that's ok. after every 2 or 3 coats i like to buff out the gloss with a scotch-brite pad anyway.
after about 15-18 coats i'll mix the tru-oil with mineral spirits, and continue to lightly buff down the gloss with the scotch brite, until the very last 2-3 coats.
and when its all done i use some stuff called Finess-it with the Finess-it cloth. its a liquid abrasive that takes away the streak marks.

Tru-oil is also super easy to repair. if you get a drip or a scratch, you just sand down the area and start re-applying layers of tru-oil in that spot. blending it in with the surrounding area.

another thing, tru-oil will oxidize in the bottle. so instead of peeling off the protective seal, poke a needle hole into the foil cover. this will help preserve the stuff

 

[FretFire]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

I used lint-free cotton rags, one to apply the oil and another to wipe it off. Here's my oiled black korina neck:

 

[PoorMan]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

For oil finishes, I prefer using a clean rag.

+1

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: Unfinished Alder body - Oil Finish Ideas

If you use just Boiled Linseed Oil, you can go further if you want a more durable finish by applying a barrier coat of shellac... and then you can apply any type of lacquer even nitro over the shellac. I use Preval disposable sprayers and Zinsser's wax free Seal Coat as far as the shellac goes.

You can apply the BLO with a damn paper towel... no special stuff necessary. BLO contains Japan driers so it doesn't need to be thinned that much IMO. BLO and other oils get gummy if the wait time between coats is too short which is where the previously mentioned turpentine thinner might come in handy but you shouldn't really need it.