Doing a couple projects with tung oil and tung oil finish recently, ended up needing to shave off a bit here and there and was surprised to see that tung oil (pure tung and “finish”) did not noticeably penetrate the surface at all, other than the end grain of course.
People always talk about tung oil and similar deeply penetrating the wood so this is kind of interesting to me. Most recommend thinning for the first coats so that it penetrates, however in my case it looks like that did not help penetration at all. I have a theory that the thinner coats actually set up too quickly and stop further penetration of pure tung. No big deal it served its purpose for my projects, but for future use and just for knowing sake, I would like to see if it’s possible for tung oil or similar to soak in more. This is around 10 coats, some pure and some finish. 3-4 weeks of curing. There is a very thin dark layer I can see, that no doubt is providing protection, just thought there might be more
Has anyone tested something similar? Or know of a technique to deeply penetrate wood with oil? I know there are traditional Chinese techniques like cooking the wood in oil, but that’s not too practical.