I am going to make some decorative wood rod handles for some muskie rods, and am wondering what the best finish would be for them, bearing in mind that the handles will be hung on to more than a spinning or fly rod, and I want something that won't wear off. How about Birchwood Casey tru oil? Any suggestions will be appreciated, Thanks Gene

If you do a search, you will find lots of responses to this question. But the most frequent answer is Tru Oil.

You got it. Tru oil!

Ed Smith

Another option is to seal the wood with epoxy and sand it smooth down to at least 1000 grit. Then either polish it or top coat with tru oil. This gives a different lok than tru oil alone.

If you want a hard durable surface impervious to just about anything except acetone, coat the entire grip with three coats of thin CA, sand with Micro Mesh to 12,000 and then buff with 0000 steel wool. This will give you an extremely hard satin finish.

I would not recommend sealing the wood with something like epoxy and then putting any kind of oil on it. In order for oil to do anything it must penetrate the wood and it can't penetrate anything like epoxy.

I have applied tru oil over epoxy for over eight year and have used it on my own spinning rod seats and it holds up great. I use my main rod three times per week from may to september.

Are you buffing the Tru Oil after it dries? And what's the reason for putting Tru Oil on top of plastic?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2006 10:03AM by Gerry Rhoades.

I have been using Flexcoat on wood butts for many years. It wears like iron and only needs to be recoated when it starts to look rough. Jesse

Boat builders put spar or spar urethane on top of epoxy to protect it from UV especially on cedar canoes that are glassed. I don't care for the look and depth of an epoxy finish and I don't care for the look of Tru Oil on pourous wood like Butternut, so I seal the wood with epoxy and sand the epoxy smooth and thin and top coat with Tru Oil, which I believe is really a varnish. The Tru Oil has a golden glow that I like.

Also if you don't care for the gloss of a tru oil finish Birchwood and Casey has a stock and sheen conditioner that will give you a softer finish when used over Tru Oil

JIm,

The tru oil can't penetrate through the epoxy. Tru oil is not a varnish it is an oil.

Eugene,

The best way to go IMO is to use stabilized wood....then you can finish it with whatever you want...or nothing at all.

Tru oil is very popular for unstabilized wood.

I have worked with wenge on several handles, the wood is very porous and hard to get tru-oil to fill the grain in the wood. I use an epoxy designed for wood, sand and top with tru-oil. The finish is very hard and durable. I also think that tru-oil is blend of linseed and poly. it will harden on it's own without soaking into the wood. It works much better on porous wood to have a smooth surface to finish and the and the tru-oil will bring back the sheen after sanding. Mark