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Thinking ahead to finishing my first guitar and I am not equipped to do a lot of the spray finishing talked about a lot here. I'm also looking for a more natural matte finish rather than the shiny look of a lot of martins. So a couple questions. One - what the heck is pore filling and did I screw up by staining the mahogany first? Two - what are thoughts on tung oil as a finish? Or am I just way off base on the concept? if that's no good are there any other suggestions for hand finishing?

Thanks all!

You can still pore fill after staining. Can't tell you about Tung oil, never used it.

Tung oil will work fine as finish. It can be brushed on or wiped on. I am not sure about a pore fill under it. Tung oil is more of a penetrating type finish and conventional pore fillers probably won't work too well. I say probably because i have never done any pore full under this type of finish even though I have used quite a bit of it over the years.

I have found tung oil will seem to gum up on the neck after a while. I used it only once. There are different grades for sure. I would look for tung oil at a place like ( tools for working wood ) avoid the home depot and lowes stuff , they buy the cheapest stuff out there.
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/dept/TI

Hello Aaron.
I was in the same boat as you... Don't have spray equipment and was looking for a more simple, hand applied method to finish my first build... "Tru-Oil"!! Google it... It is an inexpensive finish used for gun stocks. There are a few guys on here that use it and pointed me in that direction. I now point you in the same direction. They use it mostly to finish their necks but I used it on the whole guitar and am happy with the results. Look it up here too to see how to use the "slurry method" to pore fill. See my recent threads for an example of the way "Tru-Oil" comes out on a finished instrument. Good luck...

Sincerely,
Rich

justrfb wrote:Hello Aaron.
I was in the same boat as you... Don't have spray equipment and was looking for a more simple, hand applied method to finish my first build... "Tru-Oil"!! \

I can second that. I usually just use Tru-Oil for necks but last winter, when I had to take my guitar project into the house to dry and didn't want to stink up the place with lacquer, I used Tru-Oil for the entire guitar with good results. LMI gives excellent instructions for using Tru-Oil. The key is that your surface prep has to be more thorough, going all the way up to 600 grit, because Tru-Oil doesn't fill scratches the way lacquer does.

Once you have the guitar finished and the oil cures, you can dial any degree of matte or gloss you want, simply by choosing to either go over it with a 3M "superfine" sanding pad (for matte) or buff it (for gloss).

Thanks guys! The more I read about tru-oil, the more I like it. So I ordered some. Is there a guide to properly doing the slurry method with tru-oil (on mahogany) somewhere on here? I did a search but did not return any details on the process, just mentions that people have used the method.

Thanks again!

aaron wrote:Thanks guys! The more I read about tru-oil, the more I like it. So I ordered some. Is there a guide to properly doing the slurry method with tru-oil (on mahogany) somewhere on here? I did a search but did not return any details on the process, just mentions that people have used the method.

Thanks again!

It's pretty simple. Mix it 50/50 with mineral spirits (I use low odor type), sand in the mixture a little at a time with 150 grit paper then let it dry (takes longer than just when wiping on the tru-oil), after it dries do the same with 220 grit, let it dry and then go through your sanding progressions. I sand to 1200 on my necks but haven't use this for the body.

Would that procedure apply with the tru-oil sealer or just the try-oil finish itself? I saw both products on LMI so I bought both. But if all I need is the finish to do both jobs then i'll swap that one out.

LMI has a complete tutorial.

http://www.lmii.com/oil-finishes