Finally, forward progress . . .

Got some less-than-subzero weather a couple of days ago, so dragged the countertop outside to apply 320 sanding grit. Wow, it's hard to believe you can get a smooth finish like that with zero polyurethane! Almost slick. Absolutely awesome.

I grabbed the tung oil and got ready to apply it when we discovered that I forgot to bring it inside to keep the temperature acclimated, and we discovered globules in it (apparently, of tung oil fat). So we took the whole operation inside and put the tung oil on a heating vent in the house and finished for the day.

Yesterday, we decided (after HW did some research) that it was okay to go ahead and work with the tung oil. Once applied, it has to be rubbed in anyway, so anything that might be globby (is that a word?) would get worked into the wood. So I started.

Here's where the MPM's geekiness comes into play: I LOVE doing the finish work on projects like this. There is an enormous amount of work that goes into creating something like a countertop. Hours and hours of painstaking cutting, measuring, joining, gluing, sanding, routing, scribing, etc. By the time people typically get to this finish stage, they're done, and just slap on some coats of poly and call it a day. However, this is where the beauty of the work finally shows itself, and it's almost instantly. That's why HW and I are a good team for things like this. He bangs it out, gets the details in raw wood to the point we want them, and then I take over to show off the beauty of his work. My job: sand and finish.

Pouring that tung oil onto the wood and then slowly rubbing it in is a bit like an archaeological dig for dinosaur bones. It's a slow process, and if you rush it, you'll miss something. You pour it on, and then take a rag and slowly work it into the wood. Tung oil works best with friction, so each coat you put on has to have warm friction applied (aka lots of rubbing) to get it worked into the grain. It's the most dramatic with the first coat because the color and sheen changes, and all the character of the wood is finally revealed. Cherry is a very varied wood. It can go from completely raw maple blond, all the way to a deep mahogany color. Lots of people don't like it because it's exactly that: too varied. But the character is what we truly love about it. It doesn't have the depth and "tiger eye" effect of mahogany, which is what we were originally going to use, but it does have a very beautiful look. And the more tung oil applied, the more depth of character it reveals.

The trick is, you can't let the oil pool. If it does for too long, it will develop a film/tacky feel, and then it's a pain to work out. So you work in small sections at a time. Using good lighting, you can see where the wood absorbs too much or not enough, and you just keep going over it and over it until it's all about the same sheen. Then you let it dry.

Some say 24 hours is enough between coats. I'm a little worried that won't be enough, so I might wait longer. We'll need about 4 to 5 coats on this (I'm guessing) before the wood is well-penetrated and sealed, and then about 3 weeks or so of curing before it can be installed and used. The next coat will be applied using 0000 grit steel wool. Supposedly, that will help raise the grain just enough to get the wood to take even more tung oil. That's what master re-finishers are saying, so that's what I'm going with.

Tung oil is NOT desirable for a lot of people because of the dry time. It's not polymerized, so there's no accelerant in it to make it dry faster (apparently, that's why people put additives in pure products--to get them to "be faster"). It's pure oil, which takes a long time to dry. BUT because it's pure oil, unless you're allergic to tung nuts, it's 100% safe, biodegradable, non-toxic, 100% waterproof, stain resistant, and GREEN. So we're using it. Even though we don't plan on eating off the surface, we thought it was still a good idea to go green on this part of the project. And tung oil finish is some of the prettiest finish we've ever seen.

Looks like the blogger feature doesn't want me to post any pictures of our progress anymore. Figures. Not even blogging is an easy sport anymore.

Anyway: Finally! Forward Progress!