How should I finish soft maple

[Randy Goodhew]

Forby's Tung Oil Finish is a highly thinned (like 80%) alkyd resin/soya oil varnish. The only tung oil is printed on the label. Real Tung oil does not darken with age as much as linseed oil. Neither does alkyd resin/soya oil varnish.

This is a favorite "Internet Echo."
Formby's Tung Oil Finish DOES contain tung oil and it always has.

[glenn bradley]

Scott's links have got it covered. I used a core of cheeses cloth wrapped in old t-shirt material. While holding the pad and forming it to your grip, assure that the face of the pad is smooth without overlapped material or wrinkles. The squirt-bottle for loading is the way to go. For large areas I will actually load the pad and as I start to run out of shellac while applying I will squirt shellac directly onto the surface just ahead of the pad. This allow a fairly long and continuous run of application. The method of reloading the pad 'on the fly' can give you very uniform results across large areas or on troublesome materials like these MDF drawer fronts for some shop drawers. The white plastic screw-top container in the upper left of the pic holds the pad in some DNA. This keeps the pad usable over a longer period of time but, I don't keep it after the current finishing session is done. I just make a new one for 'next time'.

[Scott Holmes]

Check the MSDS it's an alkyd resin/soya oil varnish. It even says varnish on some of the newer labels.

[Randy Goodhew]

Check the MSDS it's an alkyd resin/soya oil varnish. It even says varnish on some of the newer labels.

The MSDS says it's a Tung Oil Alkyd Resin Solution.

The manufacturer currently states that Formby's Tung Oil Finish is: "A high quality varnish made from a balanced blend of tung oil and other fine penetrating oils."

1. I'm a chemist (Clinical Chemist and Toxicologist, with experience in the paints and coatings industry).
2. I developed Gas Chromatography testing protocols for detecting Tung Oil.
3. My lab tested this product when the "no tung oil" rumors began and we found tung oil in this product.
4. I worked with Homer Formby on several business projects. He really used tung oil.

msds formby's.jpg

[Scott Holmes]

Well it's about time. That MSDS is much newer then the the ones I have and they all showed it was a soya oil/alkyd resin varnish, now it's soya and tung oil. A reaaly long time ago they didn't even say it was varnish.

[Ryan Wood]

Sorry I haven't been on in a couple days and I didn't relies how many replies the thread got that I didn't reply to. So I took a break from making the clock that I was working on because after spending close to 30 hours on it I wasn't happy with how it looked. So I ended up making a little maple wall cabinet. I did try padding on shellac to finish it and it worked well. I used the shellac first and then put some stain over that then put some spray poly over that to protect the finish. I know that I shouldn't of put the shellac on before the stain but I did a test of the 4 finishes that I thought would look the best on a scrap piece of maple and I liked how the stain looked put it was two dark so I tried the stain over the shellac and it looked nice because it was not to light and not to dark. The finish on the cabinet looks good but not great but I know that you don't want to use shellac to seal the wood before the stain.

[Scott Holmes]

Ryan,

The clock doesn't need poly to protect it, shellac is plenty of protection for a clock.

IMHO Poly is for floors and stairs, period.

[Rich Engelhardt]

A MSDS isn't a list of ingredients....
Not everything a product contains is going to be found on one.
Never has - probably never will list it all.

It's a decent place to check for the presence of hazardous materials, but, it's not a comprehensive listing of everything.