Several months ago, I was assisting with a youth group who would be turning pens for the first time. I wanted them to have a finish that was quick/easy to apply and looked nice; CA was kind of out of the question due to its learning curve. So I bought a small bottle of Aussie Oil and they used it as a friction polish. It worked more or less like I would expect a friction polish to work, and wore off of the pens basically as quickly as I would have expected. From what I can tell, it's just oil and shellac, so largely the same thing as Mylands, shine juice, what have you.
Here's the thing - a week or so ago, I was turning a crochet hook handle. I turned it with a complex enough profile that I didn't want to attempt a CA finish, and it was made from snakewood, so extremely hard/dense wood that can achieve a pretty good luster with no finish at all. I decided to use the Aussie Oil instead despite the expected heavy hand-use of the item.
For the first time, I noticed that the bottle had application instructions. They're pretty different from how I usually apply friction polish. They basically say to hand rub in several coats without powering on the lathe, and let it build gloss that way. There's a footnote that says "you can use it as a friction polish too, go look online for those instructions."
I decided to give it a shot. I sanded the wood up to 600 and then used some Scratch Freee to get it really, really smooth. Proceeded to put on 3 or 4 coats of the Aussie Oil by hand, no significant friction, no heat. Just rubbing it in. Lo and behold, it gave a really nice glow without seeming to build a thick film. Great gloss. And even though I started using it right away, the finish has held up pretty well through many hours of handling. Not perfect, but it didn't instantly go all cloudy like friction polish usually seems to. It seems like hand-application worked better and produced a more durable finish here than applying the same stuff as a friction polish.
Anyone have any idea what the difference is here, or have other tips for how to use this stuff? I was really pleasantly surprised.
Here's the thing - a week or so ago, I was turning a crochet hook handle. I turned it with a complex enough profile that I didn't want to attempt a CA finish, and it was made from snakewood, so extremely hard/dense wood that can achieve a pretty good luster with no finish at all. I decided to use the Aussie Oil instead despite the expected heavy hand-use of the item.
For the first time, I noticed that the bottle had application instructions. They're pretty different from how I usually apply friction polish. They basically say to hand rub in several coats without powering on the lathe, and let it build gloss that way. There's a footnote that says "you can use it as a friction polish too, go look online for those instructions."
I decided to give it a shot. I sanded the wood up to 600 and then used some Scratch Freee to get it really, really smooth. Proceeded to put on 3 or 4 coats of the Aussie Oil by hand, no significant friction, no heat. Just rubbing it in. Lo and behold, it gave a really nice glow without seeming to build a thick film. Great gloss. And even though I started using it right away, the finish has held up pretty well through many hours of handling. Not perfect, but it didn't instantly go all cloudy like friction polish usually seems to. It seems like hand-application worked better and produced a more durable finish here than applying the same stuff as a friction polish.
Anyone have any idea what the difference is here, or have other tips for how to use this stuff? I was really pleasantly surprised.