What Type Of Oil For Naked Guitar?

[steve takacs]

I have a 6 string guitar, the body of which is made out of swamp ash that is unfinished and am wondering what type of oil ( of other liiquid) can be used on it. If it is oiled, will there be a tendency for the body to get dirty & or gummy than if it were sprayed with some sort of clear coat? Thanks, steve t

[Bob Carlucci]

Tung Oil is your best bet Steve!!... It is an actual wood finish and won't "grease up"... only oil I would use on a good guitar body.. I have heard Linseed is good too, but I think Tung is standard nowadays... bob

[Bill Hatcher]

Don't use straight tung oil. Use some sort of polymerized oil that will actually harden. Pure tung oil will remain sticky and gooey the entire life of the guitar.

I have built several guitars and used oil finish on them. No more. There is not enough protection from moisture, sweat, beer etc. and the oil finish has to be continually maintained the entire life of the guitar. There is a reason why you don't see an oil finish Gibson or Martin or Fender or Gretsch or Taylor or Rickenbacher or........

[Bob Carlucci]

Steve... There are very good Tung oil finishes out there... Bill is correct in thinking that cheaper hardware store tung oil might not be the way to go... Formby and Minwax make good oil finishes that are recommended for this type of work.. Carvin offers a do it your self guitar kit called a Bolt which is a high quality kit, and they recommend Min Wax tung oil finish if you want that type of finish.. also I got this from a luthier web page:

"One packaged wiping varnish we are familiar with is Formby's Low Gloss Tung Oil Finish. It works well, has a relatively long pot life (i.e., it takes a while for it to dry), and is widely available in paint and hardware stores. If we had to guess (and in fact we do have to guess- our email query asking the manufacturer for info on the ingredients was never answered) we'd say this wiping varnish is made with a “long oil” polyurethane varnish diluted with a not-too-volatile solvent. We use it and have had good results with it. Minwax makes a good wiping varnish as well; it's called Minwax Tung Oil Finish".


anyway Steve, Bill is correct.
Don't use the cheap hardware store stuff, ,,, if you want an oil finish I would use Minwax or Formbys...

I will disagree with Bill on this one point.. My oil finished guitars held up just fine, but don't look as nice as a well applied lacquer finish.. Just don't paddle your canoe with it, or use it as a beer glass coaster,,,

The oiled guitars DO tend to feel "alive" in your hands and IMHO will resonate and sustain better than a heavily "pollied" or lacquered guitar of the same type... seen a lot of them and I feel very assured of this, although some good players would probably not agree...bob

[Alan Brookes]

Tung oil can sink into the grain and stain the finish. Lemon oil and wood block oil work better.

But do you really have a guitar with no finish (which luthiers call "in the white") ? The only instruments I know of which are sold without finish are lutes, where the round back is highly varnished or French polished, but the table is finished only in egg white.

[Jonathan Lam]

I think warmoth and the other parts companies only will warranty necks if you use tru oil on them, Check thegearpage.net would probably be a lot of info there on finishing bodies with just oil.

[Michael Douchette]

I dunnooo, but wen I'm nekkid, to or free margaritaz oil meeee up (hic) putty goooooood...

[Tamara James]

types of wood interest me. I never heard of a swamp ash. From my search, it has lots of names.

Here is an article that suggests it is part of the olive family. If it were me...I'd be tempted to use a good grade of olive oil.

Valuable timber and ornamental trees. Leaves deciduous, pinnately compound, opposite. Flowers small, inconspicuous, in compound panicles; the two kinds, except in A, borne on separate trees. Fruit a dry seed, winged like a dart.

Ash trees are easily distinguished in the woods by the opposite arrangement of their pinnately compound leaves. Hickories, walnuts, and other trees with similar leaves will be found to have an alternate arrangement. The snugly fitting bark, broken into small, often diamond-shaped plates, gives the trunk of an ash a trim, handsome appearance in the winter woods. The seeds, winged and shaped like darts, are borne profusely, and are quite sufficient identification. No other tree bears a fruit that can be confused with this one.

There are thirty known species in the genus Fraxinus, half of which inhabit North America, covering all sections except the coldest. The Northern Hemisphere in the Old World is as well supplied. Cuba, northern Africa and the Orient have tropical species.

It is not so clear to ordinary people as it is to the botanists that the ashes belong to the olive family.[/b] If we knew all the tropical members of the group we might not be surprised. The relationship is established by morphological characters obvious only to trained observers.

The name ash is applied to several other kinds of trees. Mountain ashes belong to the rose family. Prickly ash belongs with the sumachs in the rue family. "Yellow ash" is a Tennessee name for Cladrastis lutea, the virgilia, a member of the locust family. The "hoop ash" of Vermont is the hackberry, a close relative of the elms.
(http://www.plantguide.org/ashes-and-fringe-tree.html)

but then, I have been known to be in err on most things.

From a guitar website:
http://www.soundetta.com/guitars/wood-i ... ar-bodies/

Swamp Ash
Swamp Ash wood is not a consistently high quality wood. Often times there are areas of the Swamp Ash tree that are hard and dense, and others that are brittle and porous. For the best quality when buying a guitar made of Swamp Ash, choosing a high end brand name is best. The Gibson Les Paul Swamp Ash Studio Electric Guitar, for example is a quality guitar made from Swamp Ash.

[John Billings]

How about Watco Danish oil? As far as Minwax and Formbey';? I don't have a very high opinion of those commercial products. I'd look for some pro-grade stuff.

[Dick Wood]

Naked, Tung Oil, keep talkin,I'm interested.

[Bill Ford]

steve,
I would go to a website that specializes in vintage instruments,(Elderly, etc) and look at what they recommend.

Bill...$.02

[Mike Neer]

Steve, I like gun stock oil on the neck--it's called "Tru-Oil".

[Bob Carlucci]

Look..To all the naysayers trying to talk Steve out of using tung oil.. This finish is still used by many top grade luthiers IF you like this sort of finish. It won't hurt ANYTHING to use it... Steve.. here is a Canadian builder of fine classical guitars that offers the Tung oil finish,if you request it... bob
http://www.patmaillouxluthier.com/en_gu ... lables.htm

[Bob Carlucci]

another..

http://www.luthiersaccessgroup.com/iscmg1.html

[Bob Carlucci]

http://www.apscustom.com/as30.htm

more tung finishes...hi end custom guitar builders still use standard tung, but personally I would use Min Wax Tung Finish.. easier to get a good finish...

Steve if you want an oil finish, go for it... Use multiple coats, buff until your arms ache.. it will turn out great... bob

[steve takacs]

Thanks, everyone for the responses. This is what swamp ash looks like, Tamara. Probably goes by another name. I'll mull this all over and do the research as suggested on tung oil etc. Thanks for hanging int here on your tung oil sugggestion Bob. I did buy some hardward tung oil and put it on some wooden masks and it really gummed them up, so I'll look for the good stuff as you suggest. Here are some photos of the guitar which is "out of this world", so to speak. Mike Perlowin had a thread on Raven West basses which is how I found out about their 6 strings. The pickguard and plate in the back are also made of wood. Thanks, Mike. steve t

[John Billings]

Nothing against tung oil Bob. Just against cheap tung oil. Back when I was restoring gunstocks, I used it all the time. I had a drying cabinet, and usually did 20 to 30 hand-rubbed coats on a stock. Can't remember the brand, but I think I might have gotten it from Behlen's(sp?)
I would not use the cheap stuff that's advertised to homemakers so they can re-finish their Mom's 1925 sewing machine because they're convinced it's an antique.
I've walked into antique stores and homes where the smell of tung oil was overwhelming. And that smell stays for years, cuz it just soaks in, the excess is wiped off, and it never really does dry! I've seen many beautiful antique pieces of furniture that were ruined by cheap tung oil. Ya gotz to get something that has a dryer in it.

[Tamara James]

What a beautiful guitar! I just love the inlay on the fretboard! OK. I'm droolin'.

Is it left handed or right handed? Looking at the strap button placement and the way the frets are accessed at the end, It appears set up for left hand. It would be difficult to get a right hand on those highest frets. Maybe I am just looking at it wrong or are the pics mirror images? Actually it looks like two different guitars. The bottom two seem to be the same, but the top one seems different. Maybe I should lay off the caffine.

I'm gonna go play a little steel now. I gotta get that out of my mind.

[John Billings]

Steve! That guitar is a beauty!. Did you get any of the parts(neck) in China? Or is it a totally"stateside Charlie?" If that back coverplate is the same wood, you can do some experimentin' on the inside of it. When I was doin' gun stocks, I made my drying cabinet from a stereo speaker shipping box. I used a piece of broomstick across the top, and made various hangers from clothes hangers. For the heater, I used an old metal industrial strength hair dryer. I was able to do three coats a day using that method. But that was goin' for a deep, high-gloss shine, which ain't what you're lookin' for, I gather. Straight tung oil was great for old Chinese junks, but get somethin' with a dryer in it.

[John Billings]

After some searchin', I find that the Behlen tung oil has no additives. And they say that none are needed or desirable. It's been 30 years since my gunstock days, so maybe my memories ain't correct. Behlen's products are top drawer, so give them a look-see.
http://www.cheyennesales.com/catalog/behtung.htm

[Bill Hatcher]

Back when Ken Warmoth still owned Warmoth guitar products they offered a warranty on their guitar necks.....unles you put on an oil finish, then the warranty was void.

Don't use it. These high end makers and some others will sell you a guitar with an oil finish on it...if you want that. It is easy to do. You just wipe on the oil a few coats and that's basically it.

Better on furniture than on a guitar.

The Formby product is a combination of oil and some hardeners. The oil people hate it because it is not pure oil. I would prefer it, because it does harden into some sort of finish. The straight pure tung oil never hardens, and especially not enough for a guitar. Use it at your own peril.

[ajm]

There is a difference between PURE Tung oil and what is usually sold to consumers. Pure tung oil from what I have read is way more difficult to deal with.

As for what is usually sold to consumers: Tung oil, Tru oil, Linseed oil, Danish oil........ if you do some research on the 'net you're going to find that a lot of these products are all about the same. They are mixtures of an oil, a thinner (to make it easy to apply), and a varnish.

My advice is to do some research on the internet in addition to the responses here.

[Alan Brookes]

...I never heard of a swamp ash...

I believe all Fender Cable-Pedal Guitars were made of swamp ash.

[Sonny Jenkins]

Nothing could be easier (for me) or more satisfing than Tru-oil,,,






and if it gets scratched or damaged,,,just swipe some more tru-oil on the scratch!!!! (Tru-oil is a modified or enhanced shellac in an oil base,,,the oil soaks in leaving a hard coat of shellac). Apply with a small cloth or paper towel and wipe of excess,,,rub with 0000 steel wool or pad and apply again,,as many times as desired.
This guitar is tiger stripe maple and makore,,,photo does not do justice to the wood or the finish.

[steve takacs]

Tamara, you are not seeing things, the first guitar of the four is from the Raven West website I wanted a larger picture than I had. Sonny, where can you get Tru-oil and how many coats did you put on that fine looking lap steel? By rub with a "pad", what sort of pad did you mean? John, these guitars and basses are built in South Korea but sold through Raven West in the USA. There attention to detail is excellent. Sure, a person might want to upgrade the tuners and perhaps the pickups but both have been fine for me. Bob, that Godin SD you sold me is a very fine playing & looking guitar and will go back to Beijing in August. Thanks everyone for the tips. steve t