Birchwood CaseyFast-Drying Long-Lasting Water-Resistant Oil-Based Tru-Oil Stock Finish Bottle, 3 Ounce

This stuff rules. Smells good. Very satisfying to apply.People say to store it upside down once you open it to avoid the lid from sticking. Well, it'll still stick. I think my bottle may very well never open again.But that's neither here nor there...Apply your first coat. Wait a day for it to cure. Then apply about 2-3 coats a day, dry sanding every couple coats to level it out. Use super thin coats, or it will cure tacky and take ages to dry.Build up about 20-30 coats and you'll have a real nice finish. Sure, it'll take a week or two. But you'll be happier with how it comes out.

I bought a fountain pen a couple of years ago that was supposed to have come with a gloss finish. It did not. In fact, it did not appear to have any finish on it at all. I saved the pen and thought that I might refinish it someday.Then I came across the Tru-Oil. I had used this stuff clear back in the 1970s on a .22 cal. Wards Western Field rifle. I remembered it having done a pretty good job on the rifle so I tried it again, but this time on the fountain pen.The barrel and cap of the fountain pen are made of California Buckeye Burl. This appears to be a type of precious hardwood that looks a lot like marble. If you get a good enough finish on it, then it definitely looks like marble or maybe even better.One drawback to the wood in the pen is that it does contain some pits and other flaws. Probably for this reason, it took several coats of Tru-Oil to do the job. Multiple coats of Tru-Oil will eventually fill most imperfections in the wood.I used the index finger on my right hand to apply the Tru-Oil. I used fine steel wool between coats. I'm not sure of the coarseness of the steel wool because it just said "finest" on the package in English and then some other things in other languages.The trick to getting a beautiful finish seems to be first to get the wood completely filled and then to apply the top coat evenly. The top coat was very tricky for me and I had to do it over a couple of times to get the finish that I really wanted. I think the trick is to rub the Tru-Oil on very quickly and as thin as possible. You can feel the Tru-Oil quickly getting tacky. It sets up very quickly. Keep your finger moving and use the least amount of finish as possible. With practice, you can level the finish by skimming your finger quickly and lightly over it. But don't try to do this too long when the finish starts to get tacky.The grain of the wood in the pen I finished with Tru-Oil has a translucent 3-dimensional look. Some of the grain looks 1/16" - 1/8" deep. This reminds me of looking at the designs inside glass playing marbles that we had when we were kids. We were good at playing marbles and we had about a gallon of them saved up at one time that we had won in marble games at school during recess and lunch hour. The top coat of Tru-Oil on the pen is extremely high gloss. It's as smooth and bright as glass or even better.I have an Eastman mandolin that has a lacquer-over-spirit-varnish finish on the maple wood back of it. The maple on the back of the mandolin is flamed maple, like a lot of violins and some guitars. The finish on the mandolin has this same 3-dimensional look.I'm waiting to see how well the Tru-Oil finish holds up on the fountain pen. Fingers produce acid and oils and it will be interesting to see how this affects the Tru-Oil. At any rate, the finish looks very good and this is only the second time I've used the Tru-Oil. I think doing a gunstock should be easier than doing a classic fountain pen.If there is anything that could use improvement with the Tru-Oil, it would probably be that it could flow out a little more easily. I like the idea that it dries fast (you are supposed to be able to apply the next coat after 2-3 hours), but I find it a little difficult to flow it out evenly on a surface like this fountain pen. Anyway, the finish on the pen turned out very good, I think. It's interesting to see all the applications that people are using the Tru-Oil for besides gunstocks.

I used this on expensive trim in my kitchen to match the existing finish. It worked very well. Nice finish, good tone. Very easy to use. It smells good too, so no off odors (more natural aroma that dissipates quickly). I plan to use it on a guitar neck and I look forward to seeing the grain pop, like it did in the kitchen.

Using six coats of Tru-Oil put a near mirror finish on this stock of a 107 year old Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle used in both World Wars. Before picture is on left. After picture is on right.Applying Tru-Oil is fast, simple, and effective. I let each coat dry for twelve hours with a fan circulating air on it, rubbed it down with 00 steel wool, blew the wool dust off with a cool air blower, and wiped any remaining dust or lint off with a paper towel before applying the next coat.Tru-Oil is a fantastic, inexpensive, and simple product to preserve and upgrade the appearance of a gun stock. It is WAY more than worth the money.

First of all this is a great product. I highly recommend it!I’m using it to finish a guitar I’m building and finding tons of conflicting information on how to use Tru-oil. Maybe this is due to its popularity + everybody has an opinion.I heard one guy on YouTube say it was not self leveling. First of all, forget self leveling. Self leveling sounds great but is very misleading. Tru-oil is as self leveling as anything out there. Think of it as a very thinned out polyurethane that you apply in super thin coats. It consists of 56% mineral paint thinners, 33% oil varnish, and also 11% linseed or Tung oil, again as self leveling as anything else.OK, so considering all the above, in order to get the smoothest shiniest finish I apply Tru-oil in very, thin coats and sand between each coat with 1000 – 7000 grit sandpaper or above (because of the possibility of a raised wood grain I used 320 - 400 grit sandpaper after the first coat only). Even after using the polishing grits (1000 grit & above) of sandpaper between coats there was no problem with coats not sticking to each other (delaminating) I put on enough coats until it looks professional, even & shiny (usually between 15 and 30). So far I’ve been applying (rubbing in) the coats with my bare fingers as it says in the instructions). I stop rubbing the finish in when it still looks smooth yet starts to pull on my hands the tiniest bit. I don’t rub the coats until it’s sticky and pulling as some people suggest. Quite honestly, I think the sanding between coats to get rid of imperfections is the most important thing, along with a very long cure time (2 weeks to a month) before buffing.Also note: I read a negative review before purchasing this product. The negative review said that it didn’t truly cure and a way to test this was to put masking or duct tape on the finish and wait for about 20 minutes and pull the tape off. I tried this on my tests & found that the tape didn’t affect the finish at all. Just as shiny as ever (I was expecting a tiny bit of residue with the duct tape but even that was beyond minimal) & no delaminating at all. Take note that I all my Tru-oil tests were done over dyed wood on Flamed Maple.Final thoughts.The wood you are working with must be perfectly sanded before using tru-oil. I go up through the grits ending up with 320 – 400 for my final grit before staining and applying the tru-oil finish.In my experiments over the past few months, I found that thinning with gum turpentine or mineral spirits was not necessary. In fact I found that thinning with gum turpentine dulled the final results a bit.