Dave,
What you have done is cut through the top coat and the next one below is now visible. Tru-Oil coats dry more or less on top of one another and it is very easy to cut through it, especially if the coats are thin. Tru-Oil gloss can only be cut down so far. In my experience a semi-gloss is as far down as you're going to get. If you want an in the wood look you will need to look at different products.
To repair this and get a coat that is safely "rubbable":
Give the stock a good steel wooling and remove the dust.
Give the stock two more "scab coats". Cut the oil with mineral spirits so it will flow and even out. Don't cut it too much, on final coats I usually cut it about 90% oil to 10% spirits. Use a
lint free pad (t-shirt),soak it good in the mixture and lay it on following the lines of the stock. You want it fairly thick but no runs. After this one is dry, wool it lightly and give it another thick coat.
After you've coated it twice, let it cure a good long time. The longer the better - two weeks wouldn't be too much. Once it's cured you can go after it with Brownells 3F. Work out the surface imperfections and rub it down to a semi-gloss. Make sure your final strokes with the compound follow the lines of the stock/grain. If you have any dust motes take them out first (carefully) by wet sanding with 2000 grit wet/dry paper and mineral spirits. Do this lightly and as much as possible on the dust speck only. The dull spot where the dust was should come back up when you rub the stock out with 3F.
Hope this helps!
Dan
P.S. - For going after the dust specks a handy little trick is to cut a circle out of your 2000 grit paper the size of a pencil eraser. Superglue the paper circle to the end of a pencil eraser and you can now use it to "erase" your dust speck. By using the edge of the paper backed by the eraser you will have
more control and you will be less likely to disturb the finish around the dust speck.
Again, watch out for runs as you apply the finish. Smooth it out as you go and watch for runs around tightly curved areas.
All of the above is why I don't use Tru-Oil very much anymore!
It takes a lot of practice to master and is not very forgiving.
Last edited by cgs; 04/26/08 06:32 PM.
