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Old 05-27-2009, 09:27 AM
Howard Klepper Howard Klepper is offline
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Location: Earthly Paradise of Northern California
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Tru-oil is polymerized linseed oil. It was designed and marketed mainly as a finish for walnut gunstocks. I have not worked with it myself.

As I understand it, the linseed is heated to make the molecules join into long chains, similarly to what they do naturally over a long period of time. Because of this pre-polymerization, it will not penetrate as much as plain or "boiled" (not really boiled--it has chemical driers added) linseed, and will build to a thicker, harder film than linseed which is not pre-polymerized. So it behaves like a wiping varnish in its application, but the end result does not have the resin component, which gives oil varnishes--particularly the short-oil varnishes--additional hardness and toughness.
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