Tung oil finish left these white marks

[shadow tusk]

Hi fellows,
So Ive applied a 3/4 pure tung oil with 1/4 turpentine finish on this piece of Ipê and now after 4 coats it has left these white marks which I think is the oil.

Anyone got advice?

[manic torrent]

you used too much oil on your coats and what you're seeing is the excess coalescing

there are possibly more accurate terms that someone with some technical knowledge can provide, but that's your source

[stark radish]

What’s the fix? Scrape and reapply?

[shadow tusk]

Should I just sand it to 320?

[manic torrent]

scrape, yea

sanding would be terrible

[shadow tusk]

This is really hard, I don’t think I can shave it. Do you have any other ideas?

[manic torrent]

Scrape it? Csrbide scraper

[shadow tusk]

Seems to be the answer, thank you very much 😃

[shadow tusk]

I found the solution: I used 1000 grit steel wool and wiped with a lint free cloth, the finish remained and the white marks did not.

I damped the cloth a little.

Thanks for your time QuitePossible.

[manic torrent]

If my speculation on the cause of the white marks was correct,, they will return

[shadow tusk]

So far nothing yet, will keep an eye on it 🤔.

[shadow tusk]

If it wasn’t such a hard wood I would try to shave it using a hand plane, but its ridiculously hard.

[manic torrent]

it's not a handplane you use, fwiw

it's a scraper, and just the finish comes off

[next moss]

So, what happened is you put too much oil, too quickly. The oil cures from the outside to the inside because it requires oxygen. As the oil cures on the inside it pushes out cured finish in the pores causing the dandruff-like effect.

Once the inside is fully cured it will stop, but it might take a couple seasons. Scraping back the finish will alleviate the problem but not guaranteed to stop it as it's mostly a wood pore issue.

This happens to people very often on end-grain because they just keep applying oil there

[shadow tusk]

Thanks foe the info, the time between coats was 4 days in a fairly well ventilated room, I think your wood pore idea is correct since it is a very hard wood, I sanded it prior, but you could just see how tight the grain was. I should’ve added more turpentine I think. Anyways it seems fine now, I sanded with fine grit steep wool and so far nothing coagulated yet.

Backside has some, but Im not too worried about it.

To be honest I think this was the wrong finish for the job, but since it was the only safe finish to have in contact with silver I had no choice.