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I had pore filled with epoxy and decided on a few coats of tru oil for back and sides. I'm just wondering if my tru oil is going bad in the bottle--its about 8 months old and half of it had been used--but its still tacky after 2 days. The first coat seemed to dry reasonably well but I found that i had to sand it quite a lot to get a smooth finish ready for the second coat. I then put on a second coat and thats still tacky after 12 hours. Its pretty humid in this part of the world right now so wondering if thats a factor. I did notice a few little blobs of congealed oil coming out now and then from the bottle but i just wiped them away and it was no big deal at the time but its got me wondering now if the oil is too old

Hello Rusty.
I noticed my Tru-Oil got a little funny in the bottle (thicker, milky consistency) after only a month or two. My guess tells me it is the humidity that is keeping it tacky after 12 hours and not the oil itself. I am sure someone with more knowledge will help out too. I love the Tru-Oil finish on the guitar. It looks real nice... Good luck.

Sincerely,
Rich

True oil over epoxy may not be a good combination. True oil is a penetrating, drying oil much like Tung oil. It does not dry well if it cannot penetrate the wood. Did you sand back to wood just leaving epoxy in the pores or did you leave a skim coat?

Brian may be right. I use the tru-oil slurry method to pore fill and have never had a problem drying.

I did sand back just leaving the pore fill and pretty much sanded most of the epoxy right back close to bare wood again.
I checked again tonight and its slightly better but not quite dry and just a little tacky. If its not dried out completely tomorrow perhaps I should sand it away completely and start again ? I would imagine sanding away sticky oil will be a messy job

I think I would clean it back off with rags and solvent First and then sand what was left. You had mentioned little gelled bits, that would be the first sign it was going bad, but i have used Tung oil that was like that without issue. When the blobs get bigger its done for.

B. Howard wrote:I think I would clean it back off with rags and solvent First and then sand what was left. You had mentioned little gelled bits, that would be the first sign it was going bad, but i have used Tung oil that was like that without issue. When the blobs get bigger its done for.

Yea it definitely did not cure properly Brian so today I removed it all and I am back to where i started.
So now to decide where to go from here. As I said I pore filled with zpoxy--2 coats. Is there any point in putting a coat of sanding sealer on now, or is that not a done thing over zpoxy ?
I have a new bottle of tru oil arriving in the post later but I am now wondering if it will work at all over the zpoxy and perhaps I should look at an alternative finish. All I have is some aerosol nitrocellulose that i used on the headstock and that looks pretty good.
You seem to think that tru oil over z poxy can be tricky sometimes ?
Thanks for the advise
Rusty

I have heard others say that they had problems with true-oil & z-poxy. I have never tried the combo myself so I have no first hand experience. I know the nitro will work. True oil may work over a seal coat of shellac. You would need to do a test. You just need to see of the oil will work over the shellac a shellac works well over epoxy.

B. Howard wrote:I have heard others say that they had problems with true-oil & z-poxy. I have never tried the combo myself so I have no first hand experience. I know the nitro will work. True oil may work over a seal coat of shellac. You would need to do a test. You just need to see of the oil will work over the shellac a shellac works well over epoxy.

Thanks Brian, So really my best option is to put a seal coat of Shellac Sanding Sealer over the sanded down epoxy pore fill and then try the new tru oil ?
Theres nothing left of the epoxy except whats in the pores as far as i can see. Will the Pore fill epoxy/Sanding sealer shellac /Tru oil/ combination be ok do you think ?

You are going to need to do a test. Put a coat of de waxed shellac on a board, let it dry for a few hours, scuff it with 320 and then put on some tru oil and see if it will work. I think it will, but i cannot be certain.