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Can any one give me any tips on getting a good finish with tru-oil after the final coat?
Should you use rotten stone for example?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

I was experimenting with that last night. I misted it with water. Then I worked through all the grades of micromash. Finally I polished it with Hut plastic polish. It's not perfect. It looks better when I put naptha or mineral spirits on it, but that maybe a limitation of the Tru oil. It hasn't been curing very long so I'll try again in a few weeks.

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Mike Lindstrom

If it's well-cured and enough coats thick, you can wet sand. Let it harden up another few days and then go through all the grades of micro mesh pads. You can probably do this wet, but I do it dry. Then you can go over it with a soft cloth and Mequiar's swirl remover (an auto polish product).

Or you could wet sand and apply one more coat and let that dry and cure and probably go right to the swirl remover.

Or, if you're lucky, you might even skip the wet sanding step. If you've put the coats on thin, you shouldn't have any air bubbles or settled dust.

You can often get a satisfactory semi-gloss (but not a water clear shine) just by buffing with a flannel rag.

I'm sorry but I don't know how to tell you when you've got enough coats. It takes a lot of thin coats for the stuff to work best for me.

Not sure this has been helpful. The best tru oil gloss I ever achieved was sprayed as a final coat over a cured tru oil surface that had been taken thru micro mesh all the way to the finest grit--12,000, I believe.

Thanks for the advice.
Approxiately how many coats do you use?
Do you follow the advise on the bottle and use wire wool between each coat or just layer up a thick layer and level much as you would with lacquer?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

I do a ton of coats. Thin thin thin. I've read that if it's too thick, it won't cure well. I did try some thicker coats and didn't have trouble, but who knows what they or I mean by thick. I do two, maybe three coats a day for a couple weeks. Once in a while, I'll smooth it out lightly with 600 using either mineral spirits or walnut oil to lube it. I've been experimenting with diluting it with mineral spirits too. I've read it gives a smoother finish with the trade off of slower curing. Maybe it worked, but wasn't a huge difference.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

The time that I used it for a full gloss finish I think I did around 18 - 20 coats i.e. wipe on, wipe off.
I think the best advice is to get it to go on as evenly as possible (pretty much the same with every finish). Why take off what you have just put on? Tru oil should be pretty easy to apply evenly. I think I rubbed down with 1000G after 8 coats, probably more like de-nibbing.