Pre-finish or glue up first and then finish

[Dan Barr]

Im using tung oil (actual tung oil) and wondering if i should pre finish the divider panels and maybe the interior compartments in a hutch before gluing up the whole thing.

the things that worry me are these:

if i pre-finish, will i damage the pieces assembling them?

if i dont pre-finish will i have poor finish quality on the interior compartments? does that really matter on the interior compartments?

seems kinda like i ought to flip a coin.


thanks for your advice,

dan

[Rob Millard]

Dan,
Whenever possible I like to pre-finish before glue up. In your case with a tung oil finish, I don’t think there are too many advantages, and one disadvantage, to pre-finishing. Tung oil is a penetrative finish, so it should be pretty easy to apply it to complicated surfaces and leave a nice finish, in other words, it doesn’t need to be rubbed out like a film finish. At the same time, it would be somewhat difficult to apply it, before hand and not contaminate glue surfaces (assuming you have glue surfaces; I have made desk pigeon holes without glue, using tightly fitting parts to hold everything together)
Rob Millard