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Woodburst colored tung oil finishes?


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I'm finishing a couple of ash bass bodies and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the woodburst colored tung oil products. I saw a picture of a bass done in the Bing Cherry and it looked very nice. So now I may take the plunge and do one bas in black/navy blue and another in a dark walnut color.

Does the stuff work extremely well and is it easy to apply? Can I use the Birchwood Casey pore filler product after using the tung oil? Thinking of finishing in black, applying pore filler and sanding back, and then adding several coats of navy blue. Then I would finish the body with the Birchwood Casey gunstock wax.

So any opinions on the Woodburst stuff?

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  • 1 month later...
hey...give the topic at least 24 hours before you bump it..that amount of impatience is not very conducive to guitar building

yes i have used those exact oils...i have them in my house right now

my honest opinion?they suck...they look like something a child would do with watercolor.

Hi! Thanks for your reply.

I posted this thread back on August 11th just after I joined. :D Bumped it yesterday.

If I were to apply the stain in multiple coats would it look any better?

Edited by philthygeezer
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I just bought 80 bucks worth in different colours off Rockler.

Here's one a guy did in the Woodburst Bing Cherry (about 10 coats he said):

bass_jayjrredstain.jpg

I heard some reports of success before I asked here, so I'm going to give it a try with multiple coats of Navy, Phthalo Blue and Phthalo green on some scrap ash and then finish over everything with Tru Oil if it works out. Sort of a stripey carrieburst.

Thanks for the warning. I'll prepare for the worst and hope for the best. If successful I'll post back here with results.

Edited by philthygeezer
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Hey! That's my bass.

It's finished with Woodburst, and I'm pretty happy with the results. It's not the best job, but that is my fault and not the products. It did take alot of coats, about 10-12 to get it to the color I wanted.

When finished is has a very dull luster, like a worn down SG. I did add about 5 coats of gloss waterlox has a clear coat and it really made the color pop out.

I don't know if the layering will work with oils, as the bond with the coat below it and is more in the wood than on the wood. It doesn't really stay as separate coats.

I've had plays to redo the finish, since I rushed the first time and didn't fill the grain. I was thinking of doing a kinda cerusish finish. Since the bass is no stained red, sand back the red and finish with a natural or mary kay white so the red grain sticks out :D

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  • 1 year later...

http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/4394c27fz73...hAP7pDBz65HyWgP

http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/4394c27fz73...hAP7pDBmQIbV01f

http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/4394c27fz73...hAP7pDBLJzA3yZO

Here's my guitar that I finished with Woodburst's Bing Cherry tung oil over the Honduran Mahogany and a light coat of the Honey Oak tung oil and several coats of Pre-Stain Conditioner under everything. The body is was sprayed with two light coats of Deft lacquer in a spray can from Walmart.

It may not look great in the pictures online, but the Bing Cherry looks awesome on Mahogany in person, I've even used in on a plywood speaker cab that always gets compliments by people thinking it's really exotic wood. I would not leave the colored tung-oil uncovered, as the Bing Cherry pigment will rub off, even after a few weeks time. My suggestion is to thin it with the pre-stain conditioner and use several thin coats. Spray lacquer or poly over the top of it.

I love the woodburst products and have used them for several projects, I'll be purchasing many more of them soon for my latest project.

Edited by SoundAt11
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I'm finishing a couple of ash bass bodies and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the woodburst colored tung oil products. I saw a picture of a bass done in the Bing Cherry and it looked very nice. So now I may take the plunge and do one bas in black/navy blue and another in a dark walnut color.

Does the stuff work extremely well and is it easy to apply? Can I use the Birchwood Casey pore filler product after using the tung oil? Thinking of finishing in black, applying pore filler and sanding back, and then adding several coats of navy blue. Then I would finish the body with the Birchwood Casey gunstock wax.

So any opinions on the Woodburst stuff?

I used the Woodburst tung oil stuff once on a swamp ash body. Applying the stuff couldn't be any easier. However, it is a pigmented stain. I found there were a couple of areas on the body that the pigment would not adhere to. Effectively, I had bald spots! I tried to put on subsequent coats, but that would just remove the pigment from the previous coat and the bald spots remained. I didn't use their prestain conditioner. Perhaps that would have helped.

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I used the Woodburst tung oil stuff once on a swamp ash body.  Applying the stuff couldn't be any easier.  However, it is a pigmented stain.  I found there were a couple of areas on the body that the pigment would not adhere to.  Effectively, I had bald spots!  I tried to put on subsequent coats, but that would just remove the pigment from the previous coat and the bald spots remained.  I didn't use their prestain conditioner.  Perhaps that would have helped.

When I think about it more, the Pre-Stain Conditioner is better off as a light, tung-oil substitute or a thinner, it doesn't really do make mahogany any more consistant to stain with their pigmented oils. Perhaps the problem lies with their being too much pigment in the tung oils. Often the pigmented oil will be absorbed into the wood, but the excess pigment powder remains on the surface of the wood and isn't absorbed. One thing that I've found that works, other than thinning the pigmented oil with pre-stain conditioner is to allow the pigment to settle to the bottom of the bottle. If you leave the container of Woodburst pigmented oil on the shelf for a few weeks, the pigment will settle to the bottom of the plastic container (sort of like when you drink a glass of hot chocolate and when you're done, the whole bottom of the mug is full of the chocolate that settled to the bottom). This is what I did for the maple neck on my guitar, as a test of "full strength" Honey Oak made the maple chalky orange, as not all the pigment absorbed. However pouring the lightly pigmented oil slowly out of the container onto a paper towl yielded very nice results. The neck turned out looking like an aged 60's Fender neck with just the tinted oil and no hard finish.

To achieve a similar result on the Mahogany body, I used the Bing Cherry and usually used a paint brush to dip out the lightly tinted oil from the top of the bottle. A couple light coats of that and a few coats of lacquer and I was pleased with the results.

On my homemade speaker cab, using Luan plywood, I just rubbed the Bing Cherry oil at full-strength (shook it up really good) with a paper towl and polyeurathaned the whole thing after it finished drying in the sun. It's a strong wine/grape juice color that looks beautiful. I tested the Honey Oak and Bing Cherry oils on some White Pine for my Amp Head cabinet at "full strength" and found that they didn't absorb evenly and left pigment on top, just I just used the pre-stain conditioner to pop the grain out and then Poly'd the head cab.

The Luan absorbed very evenly, as did a scrap of popler, unlike the mahogany, maple, and pine so it's worth it to experiment on scraps of your different guitar woods to see what works best to achieve the look you want.

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