Tung Oil

stp57

I used Tung Oil on a birch cabinet I built. It was stained with a water based walnut. I applied two coats of Tung oil on it & then about 20 hrs later I popped it in my van & went to church this morning with the intent of installing it afterwards. The cabinet was only in the van a few hours & my van is pretty well insulated, but when I checked on it after church it appeared to have leporacy. It had large dry spots everywhere on it. Just a few hours earlier it looked great.
I postphoned the appointment with my customer & took the cabinet back home to work it over. I wiped down the spots with mineral spirits & reapplied the Tung oil & it appears to be alright now.
Does anyone here know why this happened?
Steve

neolitic

"It was stained with a water based walnut."

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Robie

A lot of finishing oils will bleed for some time after applied. It's excess oil coming from the pores. All you can do is keep on wiping it and it eventually will dry up and stop oozing. The warm van probably helped promote the process.

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stp57

Thanks Robie,
It looks great today after a recoating, so you hit it on the head. I did forget to mention that I used a small amount of Japan drier on the previous coat to speed up the dry time. Maybe I didn't mix it in good enough?
Steve

Neo,
Water based stain wasn't the problem. Actually, outside of dye, it is pretty good at doing touch up through the oil finish.

Darwin

Sounds like the cabinet drew available moisture into the wood. Some areas were drier than others.