Finish for osage self bow

[Danel]

I'm going to be putting a finish on a one piece osage bow.  Leaning towards using Tunge oil or tru oil.  Any suggestions?

[Jason Jelinek]

Tru Oil works much better than Tung Oil in my opinion.  It dries fast and is easy to apply.

Jason

[Pat B]

I'd go with the Tru-Oil. I use it on all my bows. On a yew bow I just completed I used 2 coats of Formsby's Tung oil finish first then 3 coats of Tru Oil over that. I wanted the grain of the yew to really jump out(which it did with the tung oil) before I added the Tru-oil.  Pat

[the Ferret]

If you don't mind taking a lot of time and doing a lot of coats, a hand rubbed tung oil finish is a thing of beauty. Figure a dozen coats and 8-9 hours dry time per coat.

Tru oil gives a nice hard durable finish in 1/2 the coats and dry times of 20-30 minutes per coat.

Lightly steel wool between coats.

[Dave2old]

For a bow that traditional, any oil beats any poly-type finish, but it will go orange sooner than under a spray-on, if that matters to you. Dave

[ozarkcherrybow1]

Another vote for Tru oil. Love the way it goes on and looks. You can dull the gloss a bit simply by rubbing it with fine steel wool. Or leave it glossy to wow people at the 3-d range...Terry

[George Tsoukalas]

I love the way Tru Oil fills in the grain. What I don't like about it is waterproofing  for  a pouring rain is suspect. The grain raises after a soaking rain. If it weren't for multiple coats of paste wax there would be no waterproofing even after multiple coats of the stuff. At least not for me. May be I'm doing something wrong.    Jawge

[dinorocks]

As suggested by a friend, I used Formby's Traditional Tung Oil Finish (low gloss) on my first (and only...so far...!) Osage orange self bow.  I'm VERY happy with the way it turned out!

After I "completed" fine sanding, I used a damp cloth to wipe the bow down...this made some of the wood grains raise.  I then hit the bow with another sanding/steel wooling.

Before I applied the Tung oil, I buffed the bow with a paper towel...this brought out my imperfections from sanding.  I re-sanded/steel wooled these areas before using the Tung oil.

Again, I was VERY happy with the results!

Hope my experience helps!

Dino

[Slim Buttes]

I used tung oil on the first couple bows I built, had some on hand. I used spray on poly on a couple bows. On the last couple I used a "massey finish," read about it on this site and thought I'd give it a try. I am currently putting the final touches on a bow I built in the Idaho wilderness that is going to get Tru oil. My point is if you build one bow I know you are going to build more so don't worry, you will be trying to "master" the bow building many, many, many, . . . times.

I've heard Tru oil is easy, might be a good place to start.

[Danel]

Thanks for all the input.  The toughest part of putting a finish on this bow is going to be not shooting it for awhile.  I'm impressed at how good the bow shoots right off my hand.