Wudtone?

usedtobe

Anybody using Wudtone, to finish guitars, these days? Do people rate it?

I used it once, maybe when it first came out.. I wasn't totally convinced, at the time.. It could have been down to me being a bit rubbish, though..  I'm looking to finish a lockdown parts built, and looking for finishing ideas.. I'm not really wanting to spray.. I'm after a Daphne Blue type colour for the body, and a clear finish on the (all maple) neck..
Body is a nice grainy, extremely lightweight thing off the Bay.. I'm not after a smooth, perfect finish.. which is why I first thought of Wudtone..

TTony

Crimson.

I’ve found their stains a *lot* easier to apply than the Wudtone stuff.

usedtobe

Thanks, Tony. I have seen the Crimson stuff, and watched a couple of their videos.. I’ll put that on the shortlist.

daveyh

I used Wudtone, supposed to be black. Ended up not black at all. Wouldn't use again.

CasperCaster

Recently there have been a number of threads on oil finishes, either over stains to show the grain, or to create solid coloured finishes. I've put a couple of links below, which might be helpful.

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/178063/opaque-non-spray-finish#latest

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/177952/what-is-a-simple-paint-job-finish-to-do/p1

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/76402/wudtone-black-magic-woman-finish-any-experience/p1

monquixote

Thumbs down for wudtone

Jez6345789

Wudtone has generally got the thumbs down from past users.
i worked out pretty early on that it was Osmo from a wooden floor finish a good few years earlier I was involved with. Buying the basic ingredient and then colouring it yourself overcomes the sometimes tight measures when it’s rebranded and decanted as Wudtone plus you can control and mix your own colours.

if you are looking for a solid finish in blue you will need a base coat first that will cover the grain and allow your final colour coat to build out. So for most cases a hefty dollop of white oil paint pigment will do think Windsor & Newton or other oil colours just decant 50ml of polyox add white oil paint stir until you have the coverage you need.

For the blue I mixed my own or an approximation of blue and the white oil paint till I got reasonably close to a fender style colour.

i started also working it with an aged top coat which has the same effect as ageing lacquer turning the blue to greenish.

its easy to do and yes won’t look like proper nitro but once it’s finally hardened you can do some light reliving for wear using a light touch and wire wool you can rub away a little of the top coat to show base coat in areas of wear on edges etc.

i did way more experiments with Osmo and having a bit more to work with makes coverage much less of an issue. You still have to build the coats but it’s 10-20mins for a few nights if that, once you have the technique.

if you let it dry really hard you can hand buff it out to a bit more of a gloss with scratch X paste you use to de swirl cars or something similar.

i will dig out a picture 

Roland

This was painted using oil paint pigments to colour Osmo PolyX. 

victorludorum

To get Wudtone to a 'solid' finish you have to dab it on, and although this works, it leaves you with a slight orange peel finish.

Jez6345789

Some of the experiments with Osmo and oil paints. 
As said the early coats you do sort of dab onto the wood but once you have some coats down you can start to wipe on the colour and get a smoother finish also if you let it fully harden you can burnish it or use micro abrasion paste to buff it out I would suggest by hand not tried a machine and think that might be too much. 

The Blue is starting to get an aged top coat but it was the first solid colour I tried and it was a cheap poplar body and as you can see it needed far more of the white base coat to knock out the grain patterns. The red was a solid white base coat and then I think a cardinal red pigment from memory. 

So it is doable even if these are a bit knock about with application you can get pretty good results. 

I find it also a little ironic that what was a cheap diy hobbyist finish using a floor finishing product is now being touted on some luthiery builders sites as Osmo hand finished on 8-10k fine built guitars strange world. 



Interestingly the object of my current GAS features an OSMO finish 

CasperCaster

@Jez6345789 that's the first time I have seen any of your finished results, and they look truly superb! Excellent work! 

Previously you said that for an aged top coat you mixed about 25% of oil based varnish into the Osmo PolyX. Do you have any tips on what varnish to use - I really don't really know which products are oil based? Are these also floor varnishes? Or something used elsewhere?

Jez6345789

Hi @CasperCaster ;
These were the test versions really, and are a bit raggety but were a proof of concept back in 2013 I think where does the time go.

At the time it was increasingly hard to find oil-based varnish as I think that's when the solvent directives had come in so a whole tranch of products got reformulated around this era. I think at the time I either found a can in B&Q or bought from wood finish online place. Although it was not coloured because it was oil-based it pretty much looked like an aged top coat. You could simply use a bit of yellow and orange or brown spirit-based dyes to tint the topcoat if required or pine or oak yacht varnish will mix as long as its oil-based and to a degree its a case of looking through ingredients or product details as I looked through and could not see a label I particularly remember buying back then. But any non-waterbased should mix with Osmo. 


ISTR the Osmo with varnish in was to use on necks, where you wanted a more slick finish. Personally I prefer just to use coloron furniture oil and wax for necks. 

ask if there is anything else I need to remember

I ditched using it not because of the quality you could get only people asked me back then to do Nitro finishes such is my friend's preoccupation with all things being on a Strat as they used to be LOL. 

usedtobe

Thanks for the responses. Plenty to think about, there..

TheOtherDennis

I got some Wudtone to use on a three piece swamp ash body. It was supposed to be a deep navy blue. It turned out like the one second from right - 



Yes, that is green. The one on the far right is also supposed to be navy blue. It is, as you can see, also green. A darker green, but nonetheless green.

WezV

Blue going green is a common problem with lots of wood stains, gotta think about the natural tone of the wood

usedtobe

I’ve decided to go the osmo/oil paints method, for this one. Oil paints came yesterday, just waiting for the osmo.. had fun experimenting with various combinations of blue and white. It occurred to me that someone with a bit of artistic flair could come up with something amazing, using oil paints on a guitar..
Yesterday, though, I started stripping the body of an old partscaster I’d put together a few years ago. It was chipping off, anyway.. I might go down the Crimson route on that one!
Thanks to everyone for their input. It’s very much appreciated!

TTony

usedtobe said:

Yesterday, though, I started stripping the body of an old partscaster I’d put together a few years ago. It was chipping off, anyway.. I might go down the Crimson route on that one!

From painful experience ...

With refins - and any stain/oil type finishes - its essential that you remove absolutely *all* of the old finish, which sometimes means more than just the visible previous finish.    You need to get right back to clean bare wood before starting with the new finish.

usedtobe

Thanks for the tip! Forewarned is forearmed, and all that...!

usedtobe

I'm not convinced I'm ever getting ALL traces of the previous finish out of this body...

jaymenon

I'm curious - the Wudtone neck kit contains 

1.Neck colour coat (amber / yellow stain)

2. Top Coat (oil based lacquer)

Are both of these based on Osmo Oil? 

And if so, does that mean you don't really need the second 'top coat'?

jaymenon

So this is the information I have managed to acquire, hopefully it might be helpful for some of you

Apparently these finishing products are best called hard wax oils. They essentially consist of varying proportions of three components

1. Tung oil
2. A thinner / spirit
3. Resin or lacquer or wax

Osmo Polyx seems to be one of these. There are a few others, but the formulations (i.e. the ingredients, let alone their relative proportions) seem to be secret.

Other possibles include Danish oil - but difficult to find out the presence or absence of the last to ingredient (lacquer / wax).