Tung oil for exterior table?

[Scott Hearn]

I'm building a table for my big green egg. It will be S4S Cedar. I'm thinking of using pure tung oil for the finish. Not the "tung oil finishes" from the big box stores but actual pure tung. I figure if the Chinese used it for wooden boats it'll be good for a grill table. My other thought was General Finishes Outdoor Oil which is linseed based. I've had nothing but success out of GF products and it'll be cheaper and a lot faster, but I think tung would be better against water, insects, etc. Thoughts?

[Howard Acheson]

>>>> I figure if the Chinese used it for wooden boats it'll be good for a grill table.

Be careful going too far with this. Keep in mind that "tung" oil was the ONLY finish available to a Chinese woodworker. It's not like they tested todays finishes against tung oil and determined that tung oil was best.

I also heard many long submerged wrecks finished with tung oil were found with minimal evidence of deterioration.. Again, all the facts are needed. Turns out that the wrecks found were submerged in a relatively small area and there were temperature and chemical factors that greatly related to wood preservation.

The bottom line is that tung oil has somewhat more resistance to moisture than linseed oil but both are not very effective in preventing moisture damage. Some true high end marine finishes are formulated with tung oil instead of linseed to take advantage of the somewhat better moisture properties of tung oil. In almost all instances though, linseed is as effective as a finish as tung oil. Linseed oil will also do a better job at "popping the grain" . This is because linseed oil is naturally more yellow than linseed oil and its the yellow color that highlights the figure in the grain

[Hoang N Nguyen]

I can't comment of the Tung oil but I just finish my big green egg table and used a exterior grade water base clear coat I picked up from Sherwin Williams. I can't say how well it will hold up since it's only been sitting outside for a day but the end results look great. Good luck with your finishing and please share pictures.

[Scott Hearn]

>>>> I figure if the Chinese used it for wooden boats it'll be good for a grill table.

Be careful going too far with this. Keep in mind that "tung" oil was the ONLY finish available to a Chinese woodworker. It's not like they tested todays finishes against tung oil and determined that tung oil was best.

I also heard many long submerged wrecks finished with tung oil were found with minimal evidence of deterioration.. Again, all the facts are needed. Turns out that the wrecks found were submerged in a relatively small area and there were temperature and chemical factors that greatly related to wood preservation.

The bottom line is that tung oil has somewhat more resistance to moisture than linseed oil but both are not very effective in preventing moisture damage. Some true high end marine finishes are formulated with tung oil instead of linseed to take advantage of the somewhat better moisture properties of tung oil. In almost all instances though, linseed is as effective as a finish as tung oil. Linseed oil will also do a better job at "popping the grain" . This is because linseed oil is naturally more yellow than linseed oil and its the yellow color that highlights the figure in the grain

That's a good point. I've done my cutting board in pure tung and the water does bead off of it like a film finish. But my cedar fence is done with a linseed based stain finish and it beads very well at 3 years. Decisions, decisions.

[Scott Hearn]

I can't comment of the Tung oil but I just finish my big green egg table and used a exterior grade water base clear coat I picked up from Sherwin Williams. I can't say how well it will hold up since it's only been sitting outside for a day but the end results look great. Good luck with your finishing and please share pictures.

I'm leaning very very heavily towards an oil type finish. Reason being is I'm not aware of a modern clear finish that will hold up to UV ray deterioration short of automotive clearcoat. Since that's the case I want it to be easy to apply another coat every year or two. Will share pictures for sure. I'm sourcing the cedar now.

[Hoang N Nguyen]

I'm still VERY green when it comes to finishing my projects outside of just paint. With that said I just went out to my local Sherwin Williams with the hopes they know what their talking about and asked for help and was giving a product. The can said it's UV rated but only time will tell. As far as ease of applying, I used an HVLP spray gun and it went on with breeze.

[Randy Goodhew]

"Be careful going too far with this. Keep in mind that "tung" oil was the ONLY finish available to a Chinese woodworker."

This is NOT true.

Blessings,
Randy

[Frank Lynch]

I used pure dark tung oil on my BGE table because I was going with the thought that it was food safe (it's not like I'm using it as a cutting board, not sure what I was thinking). If I could do it over again, I'd go another route. My table is 4 years old and I didn't reapply it enough, and it almost looks like it was never treated. I put several coats on over the course of a week after it was built. Within 6 months of sitting outside the table was looking rough.

I'll be building another this year for a friend and we will be staining and using a topcoat. Both will be outside year round in Missouri so it gets rain, snow, sunshine, freezing temps, etc. Hopefully we can choose a longer lasting finish. We will also be using cedar, as opposed to the pine I used.

As a disclaimer, I'm relatively new to woodworking so I'm only sharing my experience, not a lot of knowledge in this area.
Frank

[Steve Schoene]

Two other Traditional Chinese finishes come to mind: Urushi lacquer, and wax. Neither of these seem likely to make very durable exterior finishes.