Tung oil and the choice for a finished ship

[DaveBaxt]

I have see model builders using weathering products to make the ships look more authentic rather than when the ship was newly built. My last and only two ships the bottoms were painted and my next one the Endeavour is also to be painted brown as per instructions . I have now come across the use of Tung oil to enhance the grain of the finished wood and I would imagine this would give the wood a sheen too. If I made a good job of the second planking .Is it a shame to cover it up with paint but rather enhance the lovely walnut wood? However is this taking away the reality of the model and making it look rather like a piece of furniture? Your thoughts on this would be appreciated. Best regards Dave

Edited June 17, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[govtech]

Did this last night on my Clara May, I love it ,it antiques some of the Wales it seems ,I'm doing Amati Bounty now and can't wait to oil it 

 

Pics are before and after 

[DaveBaxt]

34 minutes ago, govtech said:

Did this last night on my Clara May, I love it ,it antiques some of the Wales it seems ,I'm doing Amati Bounty now and can't wait to oil it 

 

Pics are before and after 

Yes it does look rather nice. Great planking too!

[LyleK1]

It really is the builders choice.

I've done both. I certainly like the "new" look but I think that aging a model makes it look more realistic.

However, it can be over done.

Covering walnut or any other quality wood is a sin, IMHO! Especially, with the amount of work put into making it look great.

I'm sure there will be others that agree and disagree.

[DaveBaxt]

16 hours ago, LyleK1 said:

It really is the builders choice.

I've done both. I certainly like the "new" look but I think that aging a model makes it look more realistic.

However, it can be over done.

Covering walnut or any other quality wood is a sin, IMHO! Especially, with the amount of work put into making it look great.

I'm sure there will be others that agree and disagree.

I agree about the Walnut. Lovely looking wood but I must admit painting covered a few mistakes in the past. Hopefully I will make a better job on my next ship and now thinking I might give the tung oil a go. Thanks once again for your input. Bast regards Dave

[DaveBaxt]

Regarding the tung oil . Are you guys using it on just about everything that or just the deck and hull and how are you applying it? Best regards Dave

[LyleK1]

I've never used Tung Oil!

I prefer Linseed Oil...

I would assume that an oil would best be used on areas that don't have any further work. I'm not sure how well glue would adhere to any of the oils.

Typically, I varnish (or use polyurethane) the decks and fixtures. I try to wait until I'm done with gluing everything in place but that's not always possible.

Glue will adhere to most varnishes but not as well as unfinished wood!

[Clive]

I have used both tung and teak oil on various models over the years and like the way that it brings out the character of the wood - more so than varnish in my view.  I use it on the hull, decks and masts - all over really.

 

It is important that you apply liberally, allow to soak in for a half hour and then carefully wipe off any excess.  If not, you are left with a waxy film when the oil is dry.

 

And be careful with rags used to apply tung oil.  Apparently they can spontaneously combust if discarded in a tight ball.  Never happened to me but I use heavy tissues to apply the oil and then flush them.

 

Good luck !

Clive

[Maury S]

I don't think it's appropriate to FLUSH those tissues.  Those chemicals end up in the ocean or your water supply.  Soak them in water and allow them to dry outdoors.  They can then be thrown in the trash.

Maury

[Clive]

2 hours ago, Maury S said:

I don't think it's appropriate to FLUSH those tissues.  Those chemicals end up in the ocean or your water supply.  Soak them in water and allow them to dry outdoors.  They can then be thrown in the trash.

Maury

I take your point but I have a sealed unit septic tank.

[Bob Cleek]

On 6/17/2021 at 4:55 AM, DaveBaxt said:

I have now come across the use of Tung oil to enhance the grain of the finished wood and I would imagine this would give the wood a sheen too. If I made a good job of the second planking .Is it a shame to cover it up with paint but rather enhance the lovely walnut wood? However is this taking away the reality of the model and making it look rather like a piece of furniture? Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Tung oil is just another vegetable oil, like linseed oil. It's use was primarily the result of marketing by the Homer Formby paint company and its use is something of a recurring fad. It dries very slowly, so I don't really see the point of  using tung oil instead of "boiled" linseed oil (which is raw linseed oil with driers added to speed its polymerization.) Tung oil is used in some varnishes, being thinned with turpentine or mineral spirits and with some Japan drier added. Tung, like any oil, will tend to produce a glossy finish if coats are built up. "Teak oil" is nothing more than any oil that some manufacturer puts the name "teak" on and sells for a higher price to uninformed consumers.

 

Any oil will bring out the figuring of a piece of wood if that is the desired result. It very rarely is in modeling because the grain of the wood, unless it is very, very tight, or practically invisible, will be so wildly out of scale that it detracts from the appearance of the model. This is particularly true of open grained woods like the walnuts and mahoganies that kit manufacturers provide to suggest their kit is "high quality." These woods are acceptable for models if their grain is filled and they are painted over, although there are many other species which are far more suitable, and at a much lower price. Walnut and mahogany are great for furniture and such. Not so much for ship models. The one exception would be half models, which portray the shape of a hull alone without significant detail and aren't intended to portray a detailed model of the entire prototype.

 

So, to answer your question, yes. Finishing walnut on a model hull bright destroys the reality of the model and does indeed make it look like a piece of furniture, cheap furniture at that. That said, people build kits for lots of reasons and if you like the look, nobody's stopping you. There are lots of decorative models with oiled and varnished hulls of all sorts of different woods which give their builders pleasure to look at. If you think it looks good, you can put anything you want on it.

 

For serious modelers who may be building in the style of many of the Admiralty Board models seen in museums, which frequently show a lot of unpainted wood, the species of choice are never walnut or mahogany. They will use woods like pearwood, cherry, boxwood, costello, ebony, Alaskan yellow cedar, maple, birch, blonde walnut sapwood (which is not a walnut at all) and the like. These species are far too expensive for any but the best kit manufacturers to provide and those kits are priced accordingly, but you get what you pay for and a lot more bang for your buck from those brands (e.g. Syren and Vanguard.)

[Bob Cleek]

3 hours ago, Maury S said:

I don't think it's appropriate to FLUSH those tissues.  Those chemicals end up in the ocean or your water supply.  Soak them in water and allow them to dry outdoors.  They can then be thrown in the trash.

Maury

But when you throw them in the trash, they just dump them in the landfill and then when it rains they leach into the groundwater too. They really should be preserved for all posterity and never discarded if one is really serious about being responsible for their environment.

 

Vegetable oils are nothing like petrochemical oils and are relatively benign in the ecosystem. They come out of trees and they decompose like trees. They don't dilute in water and won't cause any significant environmental harm. 

 

On the other hand, human feces can contain many seriously damaging chemicals, particularly the by-products of digested pharmaceuticals like antibiotics. For this reason, people who are taking any sort of medication should never flush the toilet under any circumstances because this can pollute the rivers and oceans and cause serious harm to aquatic species. In some cases, such chemicals can cause mutations than can disrupt entire ecosystems. 

 

(Sorry, but they don't seem to have an emoji for "extreme sarcasm.")  

[Charles Green]

Tung oil's advantage is that it dries to a harder finish than most other drying nut or seed oils.  

 

Blond walnut is the sap-wood from the walnut tree.  Once under the bark, walnut's sap-wood can account for nearly 1/3 of a log's diameter.

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

This subject comes back again and  again. You can search.

In 1 line:

I apply 1 coat of tung oil and the  wipe the surplus. I tried many other but the best results are with  tung oil.

 

Example on the photo, the right part  has not yet  oil.

 

[DaveBaxt]

10 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

Tung oil is just another vegetable oil, like linseed oil. It's use was primarily the result of marketing by the Homer Formby paint company and its use is something of a recurring fad. It dries very slowly, so I don't really see the point of  using tung oil instead of "boiled" linseed oil (which is raw linseed oil with driers added to speed its polymerization.) Tung oil is used in some varnishes, being thinned with turpentine or mineral spirits and with some Japan drier added. Tung, like any oil, will tend to produce a glossy finish if coats are built up. "Teak oil" is nothing more than any oil that some manufacturer puts the name "teak" on and sells for a higher price to uninformed consumers.

 

Any oil will bring out the figuring of a piece of wood if that is the desired result. It very rarely is in modeling because the grain of the wood, unless it is very, very tight, or practically invisible, will be so wildly out of scale that it detracts from the appearance of the model. This is particularly true of open grained woods like the walnuts and mahoganies that kit manufacturers provide to suggest their kit is "high quality." These woods are acceptable for models if their grain is filled and they are painted over, although there are many other species which are far more suitable, and at a much lower price. Walnut and mahogany are great for furniture and such. Not so much for ship models. The one exception would be half models, which portray the shape of a hull alone without significant detail and aren't intended to portray a detailed model of the entire prototype.

 

So, to answer your question, yes. Finishing walnut on a model hull bright destroys the reality of the model and does indeed make it look like a piece of furniture, cheap furniture at that. That said, people build kits for lots of reasons and if you like the look, nobody's stopping you. There are lots of decorative models with oiled and varnished hulls of all sorts of different woods which give their builders pleasure to look at. If you think it looks good, you can put anything you want on it.

 

For serious modelers who may be building in the style of many of the Admiralty Board models seen in museums, which frequently show a lot of unpainted wood, the species of choice are never walnut or mahogany. They will use woods like pearwood, cherry, boxwood, costello, ebony, Alaskan yellow cedar, maple, birch, blonde walnut sapwood (which is not a walnut at all) and the like. These species are far too expensive for any but the best kit manufacturers to provide and those kits are priced accordingly, but you get what you pay for and a lot more bang for your buck from those brands (e.g. Syren and Vanguard.)

Thank you  for confirming what I already suspected after reading a fair bit on this forum. Nice to  hear it from your good self and thank you for what seems an alternative view. Best regards Dave

[DaveBaxt]

I would just like to thank everyone who has taken their time to add to this thread and what seems to be a very popular subject. As I am only a beginner and as yet not at the stage where accuracy of scale is so important but still I have taken the time to ensure that rigging and other such specifics are accurate to scale so why not the grain of the wood!  However using Tung oil or similar is something I would like to try. I appreciate that once used then anything added later such as glue or paint may cause issue. In the past I have rightly or wrongly used sand and sealer which again brings out the grain and leaves a sheen. This was always easy to remove by sanding in areas which were then needed gluing or painting, not sure if this would be the case for any oil which would soak into the wood. 

               I am happy with the replies I have received and will give it further thought in what direction to take and whether or not to use anything at all. For the record I do like the look of those Vanguard models. Best regards Dave

[Bob Cleek]

12 hours ago, Charles Green said:

Blond walnut is the sap-wood from the walnut tree.  Once under the bark, walnut's sap-wood can account for nearly 1/3 of a log's diameter.

You're correct. I misspoke. I meant to say "satin walnut," which is also known as redgum, sweetgum, and liquidambar. The sapwood can be quite nearly white.

[el cid]

Also beware the difference between “tung oil finish,” the stuff you find at the big box and hardware stores, and “pure tung oil,” the real stuff. I think the first is more like a polyurethane and just uses the words “tung oil” for marketing. Pure tung oil is harder to find and takes more effort and time to apply, but eventually hardens and oxidizes to a beautiful, natural, water resistant finish…for gun stocks, furniture, and other knick knacks.

[Jaager]

Sutherland Welles Ltd.  have products that are 3 grades of polymerized Tung oil.  They allow for a faster and more predictable gloss level and much less danger of getting a "never dries" finish.  There is an old post here where a pure Tung oil application - to a table if I remember it correctly.  I suspect that either the product was not as advertised, or too much was applied.  In the latter case, a 50% dilution primer coat was skipped and the coat was a too thick 100%.  I think it case hardened at the surface and blocked oxygen from getting to the oil where a primer should be and it stayed an oil. It was a sticky mess - especially on a table

Floors and tables are probably the one place where the otherwise awful plastic polyurethane finish is the proper choice.

[Bob Cleek]

3 hours ago, Jaager said:

Floors and tables are probably the one place where the otherwise awful plastic polyurethane finish is the proper choice.

And bar counter tops and cheap hardwood floors.