Re Old English and Tung Oil

The Old English label indicates that it contains "petroleum distallates" but it may also contain vegetable oils. The petroleum oil label is required due to toxicity, but they don't have to name the other ingredients. Its intended use is as a "furniture polish" to put a shine on things that already have a "finish." The oil is intended to penetrate the wood, to "lubricate" it and prevent cracking/checking of the surface.

By design, it's not supposed to dry or harden, so it's not really suitable for the "finish" one wants for wooden articles.

That said, the table I mentioned above was an "emergency build," made out of construction grade lumber, and I used the "dark" Old English to color the surface before applying the tung oil to harden it.

I found myself with the task of selling a house with no furniture in it, and the real estate agent complained that there wasn't any place to sit down with a buyer to write a contract. I had two 2 x 10 planks, 10 ft long, in the basement, so one Saturday morning I cut off the 10" end that had a split in it and made a table out of all of the rest. It would have been a "one-nighter" but I ran out of lag bolts and had to postpone finishing the assembly when I got some more bolts on Sunday.

Old English dark gave it a reasonably even color, after which I applied the tung oil.

Most products labelled as "tung oil" actually are mixtures with other "finishing products," with a small percentage of tung oil added as a hardener. The actual tung oil content hovers in the vicinity of 10%, or maybe a little more, for the kinds commonly found; but the application and drying characteristics are more dependent on the "other stuff" in the mix. Most of these actually are labelled as "tung oil xxx" but the xxx may be in very tiny print where it's not obvious.

The tung oil I used was "98% pure" tung oil, as I recall. It was much too expensive to use on this project; but it was what I had on hand.

The "pure" tung oil does dry "to the touch" in an hour or two, and dust doesn't stick to it noticeably then, or fairly soon after. The table was "in use" within about 10 hours after application.

The tung oil continues to harden for quite a long time, and remains somewhat easy to "scratch and dent" for a week or two. It remains permeable to water and other liquids for a while longer, and the white ring water marks seen on furniture where an iced glass has been left for a while are possible for quite a while. It probably would be susceptible to "finger marks" if handled a lot during the cure time, as would be the case on an instrument neck at least.

As mentioned above, one of the kids left a glass of juice on my table about three weeks after the original finish was applied, and it left a really ugly ring. Breaking the surface of the finish with a belt sander, and reapplying the Old English + tung oil, completely removed/concealed the mark.

Once the tung oil hardens fully though, perhaps after 6 weeks or so, it's almost impossible to "mark" it without extreme measures. We never use "coasters" under the glasses, and it's had about everything one might imagine spilled on it, with no visible change in the finish.

I did, incidentally, get at least three serious offers (up to $300) to buy the table before the house sold. One person (who didn't want the house) came back after the sold sign went up to ask if I was ready to sell the table. We're still using it, 30 years later. It still looks like new - i.e. home-made crude and ugly, but very sturdy. (Recollection is that it weighs about 84 pounds, but it's been a while since I checked.)

John