Tung Oil for external stems & keels?

Howie

Wooden Canoe Maniac
I've got some cherry external stems & keel for a Rushton. I used varnish on these parts in the past but stopped doing so as scratches in the varnish can allow moisture in and cause the wood to be unsightly. I'm wondering of several coats of tung oil would be a good for them instead of varnish. I refuse to hide old cherry wood under paint...
 
Rob: Really? I'm reading on-line that it is waterproof (when allowed to air dry sufficiently - like 30 days) and dries to a hard finish. And it's easy to reapply.
 
Oil finishes can be lovely, but they aren't terribly durable. More durable than varnish? Not as far as I have seen. be prepared to re-oil frequently, and if you wait until it looks like it needs oil you have probably waited longer than is ideal, the danger being discoloration that won't go away. I was a Mad River Canoe dealer back in the days when they equipped their boats with oiled ash trim. They came in very rough because they only had time at the factory to apply two or three coats of oil (Watco, which is a very good oil/varnish/dryer mixture) before the boats shipped out. If the customer was willing to sand lightly and re-oil regularly (like monthly or better) for a year or two they would eventually wind up with a tough, elegant finish that was pretty much waterproof. On the other hand, if they did not re-oil, or only did it once a year or so, the trim remained rough and eventually started weathering badly.

So you can oil the cherry (Watco, Cetol, Deks Olje #1, Formby's Tung Oil, etc.) but do not consider it a "one and done" scenario, because nothing remotely close to that is going to happen. The good news is that most of them, once thoroughly dry, make a pretty good base for varnish when you get tired of messing with oil.
 
Also don't be fooled into thinking that oil will penetrate deeply into the wood. It doesn't, and for something like a stem or keel even a fairly mild rock encounter will go right through the oil and down into bare wood.
 
I get what you say Todd: The (relatively) thick varnish layer provides at least some protection from bangs & scrapes. Good point.
 
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