True Oil and Armorall

[gimmeagig]

I am in the process of refinishing a bass body ( It has a matte maple quilt top and the body is alder also matte) It's a cheap Chinese bass so if it doesn't work that's ok.
I am using True Oil. I have tree coats on it. It looks pretty good already. But....
I just found out about this Armorall and true Oil trick.. A cured coat in two minutes? Can that really work?
Here's the link
Shotgunworld.com • How To: Easiest Tru-Oil (or Tung) finish w/ red walnut look.

and here's a youtube video

 

[Turnaround]

I just found out about this Armorall and true Oil trick.. A cured coat in two minutes? Can that really work?
Here's the link

Don't do this to your bass.

First off much of it makes no sense. In the final stages the guy puts a coat of mineral oil on and says after a few seconds of rubbing that it is dry. Mineral oil never dries. Not under any circumstances. Besides, Armorall already contains mineral oil. It also contains silicon which you definitely want to keep away from you bass. Adding mineral oil and silicon to Tru Oil will not make it dry. If anything it will keep it from drying.

 

[96tbird]

Armorall and tru-oil trick. Cool

Here’s a trick: stop listening to tricks.

Your cheap import has a matte POLY finish. Nothing will penetrate it and it will just lay on top.

Gunstocks are never finished with poly. They are oil finished to repel moisture outdoors in wet foilage and occasional stream crossings . How often do you take your bass into the bush? Never. Instruments are finished like furniture to be used indoors.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Yeah, I agree. I think the net result of his process is that he's put a coat of ArmorAll on top of whatever Tru-Oil was cured underneath. The ArmorAll will prevent the Tru-Oil that he wiped on first from curing, and it all ends up on his gloves. Same with the mineral oil. He may as well have skipped the Tru-Oil and the mineral oil completely and just wiped on a coat of ArmorAll. And once the ArmorAll is on there, nothing else will stick to it.

 

[gimmeagig]

OK I won't try the Armorall. But I have 4 thin coats of True oil on top of the existing matte Poly at this point. Looks pretty good. Really nice gloss. I did the body only , not the top. I saw several youtube videos where people did that so I figured it would be OK. . What I read about True Oil is, that it hardens over time to a pretty tough coat. I hope I didn't mess anything up.
I figure if worse comes to worse I can always sand the True Oil off the body. I left he top alone. It has a super thin quilted Maple veneer on it. (It's a Brice HBX 406 6 string BTW) I don't want to start having to sand that. But it is a little too dull looking for my taste. Could I use boiled linseed to give it a little more of a sheen , or maybe some type of car wax?

 

[Bassamatic]

The Tru-Oil will dry hard after a while, but it is really best used on bare wood. I refinished a neck on an old bass with Tru-Oil after sanding it down to get rid of all the nicks and scratches, and did about 6 coats. THEN I used the Tru-Oil gunstock wax on it for a nicer finish and it is really quite good. Not sure about using it over a hard finish, though. Good luck with that!