Tung Oil for finish on restoring an old wooden View Camera?

Have an older wood view camera with a finish on the wood that is pretty worn. Looking at pulling it apart and re-doing it.
I don't want a high gloss finish so was thinking Tung Oil finish when I get it cleaned and ready.
Anyone doing restoration know if this will give me any problems in the field later?

Tung Oil Finish (I have used the Minwax version) is quite nice. I've used it on speaker cabinets and plant stands. It goes on easy and looks good. Durability is just ok, but it can be touched up by just wiping some more on. It doesn't build a thick film easily. Do not use pure tung oil. It is a drying oil and takes quite some time to fully cure and is soft when it does cure. The tung oil finish is a blend of oils, dryers and solvents to make it easy to use. Wipe on, let dry for a day, lightly scotchbrite pad (steel wool can leave bits in the finish) sand to knock down any nubbies, repeat. You can also apply coats with a scotchbrite pad for a slightly finer finish. 3 coats has been good for my purposes, but any number more than 2 is suitable. You should be applying to bare wood for best results.

Maybe more important to use what you are most familiar with. Probably does not matter, as long as the wood is protected in some way. Paint, lacquer, varnish, oil, etc. One good thing about doing it yourself, is you know what is on there for future repairs or restoration.

I used lacquer on my Century over ten years ago, and it is holding up well.

CasperMarly said:

Have an older wood view camera with a finish on the wood that is pretty worn. Looking at pulling it apart and re-doing it.
I don't want a high gloss finish so was thinking Tung Oil finish when I get it cleaned and ready.
Anyone doing restoration know if this will give me any problems in the field later?

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My old and much experienced B&J 8x10 had its grey paint carefully removed and given a coat of
tung oil (using a 'cloth' rather than a brush). It as 'stood up well' for some 15 years...and it looks almost 'better than new'.

Ken

Most so-called tung oil products on the market are actually something else, and generally so poorly made that they'll waterspot or fail afterwards. Since you're in Idaho, you might have access to the Daly's brand popular in watercraft areas of Oregon and Washington, which has some of the best options. They have tung-phenolic as well as urethane oil blends. Straight tung oil is like molasses and never really dries. Minwax is now a home center junk brand, although there was a time when it was reputable. But refinishing is one thing, authentic restoration another, if that distinction even matters in this case. I personally touch up my only true mahogany camera with a European marine product difficult to obtain in this country. Those were among the kinds of products I was once a major dealer of in this part of the world, as well as consulting for all kinds of such projects right up to multimillion dollar renovations of Frank Lloyd Wright and Julia Morgan wooden architecture.

The Minwax tung oil finish has listed Aliphatic Hydrocarbon as the primary ingredient on their MSDS. That's an overly generic name companies use to hide what it really is. That means it almost certainly does not contain any actual tung oil. If it was tung oil, they'd want you to know that and would have listed that specifically. It's more than likely just a highly thinned, over priced, varnish. Honestly, I avoid Minwax products. Adequate is about the best they offer.

There are a ton of finishes out there that will work. We already know you don't want a high gloss, but most finishes come in varying degrees of shine, and you can often alter them further with surface treatments. Here are some questions to consider to help you choose the right one:

Does it need to be waterproof?
How scratch resistant does it need to be?
Does it need to be repairable (so if you get chips in the finish, would you need to be able to quickly fix it, or sand it down and start over?)
How much time are you willing to spend doing it?
Does it need to be historically accurate?
Do you have a HPLV sprayer?
Do you want a wipe on, brush on, or spray on finish?
Do you want water based or oil based (clean up for oil based is more difficult)?

A lot of times you can use a higher gloss finish and then sand it down with a high grit sandpaper to give it a low gloss effect. 600-800 grit is usually good. Too low and you see scratches. Too high and it gets shiny again. A low gloss, or satin finish is just a high gloss finish with tiny particles added to help it break up the light at the surface, much like sandpaper would.

Varnish is usually best for high gloss applications, because it can be sprayed on. Avoid the brush on varnish. It's difficult to work with, and if you're going to brush it on, you might as well go with something else. Spar Varnish is good for things that will be wet because it expands with the wood. Poly is better for things that need high durability, but it has a plastic feel and is extremely difficult to repair. Shellac is best for things that need to be able to be repaired easily (put new shellac over old shellac and it'll melt the old stuff into the new stuff for an easy, seamless repair). Shellac doesn't like water or alcohol though. Then there are various oils, some curing and some not. The non-drying oils provide lower levels of protection and require constant maintenance, but have a more natural look and feel. The drying oils, like linseed oil and real tung oil, take a while to fully cure, but they have a nice balance between a regular oil and the other, more popular finishes.

Real varnishes are rare now, and there are several unrelated definitions of the terms varnish itself, depending on the cultural context. In fact, some of the traditional oil-varnish/wax blends like once used on cameras are now so rare in this country that they're not even on the radar of our prohibited excess VOC's regulations, and have gotten bootlegged in without incident. Doing so with anything formally banned can fetch a massive fine. Many of the mass-produced tung oil products are often actually oiticica oil blends, a cheaper substitute grown in Brazil. I knew the eccentric late old dandy who coined the bullshit term, Brazilian Rosewood Oil. He claimed it was an ancient Egyptian formula deciphered from their tombs, and had been tested for twenty years on the Hawaiian Coast. Actually, he came up with the idea just two years before he began marketing it, and it was blended by someone else just across the tracks from my old office, back when there were a lot of paint and lacquer factories in that area, now completely replaced by pharmaceutical and biotech plants. But he got downright rich on that BS. Actually, if it lasted six months outdoors, you were doing better than average.

A couple of those old nitro lacquer operations literally blew up, and shattered windows for miles around. In once instance, a worker was attaching a pump to a rail tank car. That entire tank car was vaporized, and no trace of the workmen himself was ever found. But his cigarette lighter was found intact lying beside the tracks. In an even crazier incident, a toluene tank exploded. The worker who sparked it was lifted atop the vapor cloud and let back down six blocks away, unharmed atop some bushes. But I'll bet he soiled his pants.

ic-racer said:

Maybe more important to use what you are most familiar with. Probably does not matter, as long as the wood is protected in some way. Paint, lacquer, varnish, oil, etc. One good thing about doing it yourself, is you know what is on there for future repairs or restoration.

I used lacquer on my Century over ten years ago, and it is holding up well.

View attachment 264871

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Spray lacquer is another good option. I've used satin spray lacquer on several plant stands and it has turned out nicely. It's incredibly easy to apply and cures quickly.

I recall using "boiled" linseed oil on a maple gunstock many years ago. Various dryers are added to linseed oil, without them the oil would never harden. IIRC I applied six or seven coats, rubbing the oil in well; the next coat after a week or so. The more coats the higher the gloss, which can be reduced with fine sandpaper. The result is water resistant, durable, and attractive. It can be repaired with the application of more oil.

Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil Gun Stock Finish

https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/products/tru-oil-stock-finish-3-fl-oz-liquid.html

You gotta be kidding, 9 bucks for 3 ounces of linseed blend? They probably bought that in 5 gal buckets for 50 bucks apiece and rebottled it at a 2,000 times markup. It's more economical bought in quarts instead. No, linseed is NOT a good camera finish, not unless it's been significantly modified using heat to turn it into a longer polymer chain called an alkyd, which should not be confused with merely boiled linseed oil. Back when I was a kid finishing walnut gunstocks with linseed, the effect of spending many hours hand-rubbing meant the heat of the rubbing friction was itself creating a longer, more durable fatty-acid linseed chain. That would be difficult to do on small camera parts. But who knows what is actually inside that tiny little bottle. The fact it can't be shipped to CA gives me a clue about the solvents involved. Don't buy any kind of traditional oil here - it's already been emasculated. But high-tech marine finishes, yes, as long as they're from an actual marine supplier. Of course, then you'll be paying high prices through the nose again.

Regular linseed breaks down fast and becomes microbe food. Also when I was young, I'd buy 55 gal drums of both linseed and paint thinner, mix em and add a decent amount of good ole carcinogenic pentachrolophenol to keep the microbes and mildew at bay, and use it as an exterior siding treatment. It had to be annually applied. Glad I didn't do that too many times, or I'd be long dead by now. Equivalent products, already factory blended, began coming out commercially about a decade later, equally deadly, until penta got outright banned from anything. More reputable manufacturers learned how to mimimize the toxics by starting with more stable alkyds to begin with. Linseed long-oil alkyds were especially good, but note the designation "long", significantly modified. These have since fallen out of favor due to air quality regulations. But in general, linseed long oils were chosen when something was wanted that took a very very long time to fully dry, potentially decades, or more correctly, to fully "cure"(technically distinct from mere solvent evaporation, but still with potential outgassing). Not what I'd want on a camera.

DREW WILEY said:

You gotta be kidding, 9 bucks for 3 ounces of linseed blend? They probably bought that in 5 gal buckets for 50 bucks apiece and rebottled it at a 2,000 times markup. It's more economical bought in quarts instead. No, linseed is NOT a good camera finish, not unless it's been significantly modified using heat to turn it into a longer polymer chain called an alkyd, which should not be confused with merely boiled linseed oil. Back when I was a kid finishing walnut gunstocks with linseed, the effect of spending many hours hand-rubbing meant the heat of the rubbing friction was itself creating a longer, more durable fatty-acid linseed chain. That would be difficult to do on small camera parts. But who knows what is actually inside that tiny little bottle. The fact it can't be shipped to CA gives me a clue about the solvents involved. Don't buy any kind of traditional oil here - it's already been emasculated. But high-tech marine finishes, yes, as long as they're from an actual marine supplier. Of course, then you'll be paying high prices through the nose again.

Regular linseed breaks down fast and becomes microbe food. Also when I was young, I'd buy 55 gal drums of both linseed and paint thinner, mix em and add a decent amount of good ole carcinogenic pentachrolophenol to keep the microbes and mildew at bay, and use it as an exterior siding treatment. It had to be annually applied. Glad I didn't do that too many times, or I'd be long dead by now. Equivalent products, already factory blended, began coming out commercially about a decade later, equally deadly, until penta got outright banned from anything. More reputable manufacturers learned how to mimimize the toxics by starting with more stable alkyds to begin with. Linseed long-oil alkyds were especially good, but note the designation "long", significantly modified. These have since fallen out of favor due to air quality regulations. But in general, linseed long oils were chosen when something was wanted that took a very very long time to fully dry, potentially decades, or more correctly, to fully "cure"(technically distinct from mere solvent evaporation, but still with potential outgassing). Not what I'd want on a camera.

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You never used it have you?
Easy to apply, a little goes far. It is not 100% conventional Linseed oil.
Very popular with the guitar crowd too.

While I understand Drew's point (except about California-- Now that coffee and hammers are both on the Prop. 65 list, the list just no longer has any useful meaning), reality is that $9 is not an unreasonable price to pay for something to maintain an item worth hundreds of dollars or more-- if that product has been shown to work.

I have enough clutter around my house, and would actually prefer to buy 3 oz. of a useful product at a markup, even if it's just a repackage, than have 5 gallons that I'll never use up in my lifetime. Even a quart is far more than I'm likely to use in the near future.

Ha !. I know the feeling. I keep all my hundreds of samples in covered large garbage cans, and slowly reduce the pile with trips to hazmat if needed. Just oil-based things; water-based products have to be used more promptly. Part of my job was to test an incredible variety of things deliberately given to me as samples in all kinds of sizes, whether a few ounces or 5 gal pails - not only coatings but designer hardware, all kinds of specialized power tools, etc. Sometimes I regretted being my own guinea pig, often not. The clientele demanded someone in house with real answers. I've been retired awhile, and the serious marine finishes we sold way cheaper than the boatyards were around $90 a quart. Entire wooden bridges received multiple coats of that, private yachts so big they had full-sized basket courts on the deck, entire houses on the Natl Historic Register. Yep. Anyone who can outright buy a Hawaiian Island can afford something like that for their teak yacht, at least until they mothball it for an even bigger carbon fiber yacht. Even my tiny little sample bottle will keep my only mahogany camera well maintained the rest of my life.

One clarification about Prop 65, it applies to produce racks in the grocery stores too, drinking water, air. If you don't want to get cancer, simply don't eat, drink, or breathe. Works every time.

Auer - I don't need to be lectured about guitars. I sold finishing supplies to instrument makers too, people high enough on that food chain to being selling genuine Stradivarius and other uber-expensive violins at their outelt (set up analogously to a jewelry store, and right next door to the police station). The rarest of those were refinished by a specialist who had his own secret elixirs. But I do know what was used on the violins and cellos etc they made themselves, which were rather pricey too. But back to guitars. There are a handful of old 60's superstars still alive in the area. They might have trouble remembering their own names, but still have enough intact brain cells to play well; and they turn up in the neighborhood from time to time, generally with guitars conspicuously UN-maintained that look like they'd been run over with a hay thrasher. They personally look worse.

RealMilkPaint.com sells pure tung oil. They recommend cutting it with their citrus solvent. I use it on my wood cameras as well as outdoor furniture (teak)

Some woods will take Watco finish very nicely and leave a matte to satin finish depending upon how many layers and how much rubbing down you do. Old fashioned varnish is now practically impossible to find--I don't know of any source.

Shellac is a possibility--get de-waxed, and use multiple thin coats. It will be glossy, but steel wool can take it down to a very nice satin finish very easily. It is one of the oldest wood finishes still around.

Auer said:

Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil Gun Stock Finish

https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/products/tru-oil-stock-finish-3-fl-oz-liquid.html

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I agree! This would look quite nice- brings out the grain of the wood very nicely. Takes multiple coats and a light sanding between coats though.

Watco has been an utter trash linseed product for the past 40 years or more. It's habit of spontaneous combustion has burnt down more cabinet shops than any other cause I can think of. Just before I retired, the "teak furniture" factory (not real teak, which is restricted, but analogous-looking cheap tropical woods) right across the street burned down due to oily Watco rags being left around. Huge fire that destroyed several adjacent businesses too. A few days prior the owner told me to my face he only employed dummies because he didn't want to pay them much. He was the real dummy.

Watco also loses it's effectiveness just as soon as it's truly dry (within about six months). Then it becomes microbe food and is prone to either microbe staining or water stains. Stick with something like a tung-phenolic or tung-urethane blend instead. But you need a marine type which penetrates deeply into dense or oily hardwoods if you have a teak, maple, or true Honduras pattern-grade mahogany camera. Walnut and cherry are more porous and less fussy in this respect.

No steel wool between finishes. Fragments get left behind and might rust. Use a modern replacement like Scotchbrite. If you were a camera manufacturer, I could go into a lot of detail concerning proper abrasive and related equipment. For the last ten years prior to my retirement, among the many other product lines I was responsible for, I ran the largest Festool dealership in the entire country west of New England, and had nearly every item they sell in the US actually in stock in volume. Also the biggest selection of wood finishes of anyplace in California, maybe the whole West. But that kind of gig quickly falls apart, of course, once less experienced people take over.

DREW WILEY said:

It's habit of spontaneous combustion has burnt down more cabinet shops than any other cause I can think of.

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Ummm, that happens when you leave any oil soaked rags piled up, not specifically one brand.

Yes--anyone using finishing products needs to be aware of the various safety concerns and take appropriate precautions. A metal closed container trash can is important.

Ces1um said:

I agree! This would look quite nice- brings out the grain of the wood very nicely. Takes multiple coats and a light sanding between coats though.

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Tru-oil gets my vote; easy to apply, very durable and easy to touch up. A little of this stuff goes a long way.

I'd give workers hell. I wanted all the rags in water too, even before the dedicated metal container (legally required by the fire marshall), They were relieved when I was retired and off their back. The milling facility boss died around the same time, so those guys were spared from safety chew outs too. The next month an incident in the paint dept caused a five million dollar fire, and a new hire cut off several fingers the first day of the job using a radial arm saw. Yep. How to make more money; hire cheaper inexperienced people.

Cramej, some oils are far more susceptible to spontaneous combustion than others. Turn your back for a half a minute, and ... that's pretty darn bad. Quite a few expensive custom homes burned down before they were even fully built due to a particular siding product brand that I refused to stock for just that reason. And Watco was by far the worst of all the finishing oils. I'm not in the loop of information anymore, but at the end of my career, Watco was being batched by the Flecto factory. My first job after college was driving a truck for a paint wholesaler; and I'd do pick ups of oils and varnishes, poly, and oils both at Flecto and at the Dupont plant, further down the same street. Good quality brands back then, not any more.
The owner of Flecto would make custom illegal batches of health-horrible moisture-cure real-deal marine urethane for his personal yacht use. But now, just one more brand label with its quality compromised for the sake of big box outlets.

I did a danish oil finish on a desk top recently and it still smells. Not sure if other oil finishes have a lingering smell.

I've used multiple piss-coats of good lacquer, buffed in between coats with outstanding results.

Clarifying this for some. Am not doing a "restoration" to factory finish. Doing a re-finish so it looks nice, will wear well, easy to touch up after field scrapes and such.
Have reclaimed old furniture of various types and have familiarity with various stains and finishes. So this camera will be a user, not a display piece.

In the future I have an older 8x10 that I want to go whole hog on. New bellows from Custom Bellows in England will be part of it. Complete strip and refinish all the wood. Then the gearing parts will be touched up and smoothed/polished for use. Metal bracing, knobs and screws will be "gold coated" - something I have had done with harmonica covers for a few of my harps. That camera will be more of a showpiece than a user. Just a project on the back burner, more for personal satisfaction and vanity than anything else.