I’m working with highly figured pear. I put on a coat of E-Z tung oil finish and came out with an odd look. Thought it was just the figure so I added two more coats. I just stumbled on an FW article about blotchy cherry and realized that’s what the odd look is. How do I strip the tung oil finish? I plan to do a wash coat of shellac after removing the tung oil.
Discussion Forum
Get It All!
UNLIMITED Membership is like taking a master class in woodworking for less than $10 a month.
Start Your Free TrialCategories
Discussion Forum
Digital Plans Library
Member exclusive! – Plans for everyone – from beginners to experts – right at your fingertips.
Highlights
-
Shape Your Skills
when you sign up for our emails
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. -
Shop Talk Live Podcast -
Our favorite articles and videos -
E-Learning Courses from Fine Woodworking
-
-
Replies
You may be stuck if it's a finished piece. Because what you're seeing is preferential adsorption of the oil in grain that's oriented close to perpendicular to the surface (i.e., "end grain"), those blotches are areas where the oil has penetrated deeply into the wood. On a plank, you can sometimes plane off enough of the surface to get past the oil.
If that's not possible, then the best advice is to attempt to extract the oil by using mineral spirits to extract it from the surface.
What I've oiled are the side panels for a chest, which hasn't been put together yet. It's too late to plane the panels. What about sanding? Or mineral spirits and sanding? Or just making new ones....
If it has cured enough that the mineral spirits won't extract it, I'd go to chemical stripper. That will do a better job at giving you a surface ready to finish than just sanding. Your tung oil finish, unlike many, actually is tung oil, polymerized tung oil that has been HEAVILY thinned.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled