Tung oil separation

[bwat]

I usually mix by own oil blend finishes but have never used 100% Tung oil. Bought a bottle in December and it now appears to have separated into oil and a blob fatty substances. The bottle is kept it moderately heated space and inside a reasonably controlled temperature cabinet that is heated with a light bulb during the coldest temperatures.

Can this be recovered by remixing or have I lost some of it's properties?

 

[mkepke]

No direct experience, but I'll guess the chance of reviving the oil depends what caused the congealing.

I suspect - despite your comments about heating - that the tung oil simply got too cold and began congealing as e.g. olive oil would do if chilled. Try warming it e.g. in a pan of warm water and mixing. If it becomes and stays homogenous, I'd test it on scrap to ensure it hasn't started drying, filter if necessary and use.

If the congealing is due to something else, e.g. you dumped contaminated finish back into the bottle, then a little heating won't dissolve the blob and the bottle should be thrown out.

-Mark

 

[stave]

It could be the oil has started to harden and forming a resinous film which is gummy. This would be exposure to air as the cause or just cold. If it was temps as the cause I would think the entire bottle would be gel. If it has hard lumps in it or is starting to look like amber nuggets then it has hardened. Just pull that out and toss it, chances are it will not reconstitute with thinner although it may be worth a try. Can't imagine an oil mix doing this unless it to had exposure to air or was significantly or overly thinned.

Stave

 

[wudnbotluvr]

I had this happen to me. I found a source on the net and found that the most common cause for this is oxidation. The recommendation was to keep the air.(oxygen) out of the bottle. Use marbles or just squeeze the bottle to remove any air. You could use which I think is just compressed nitrogen.
After it happened to me, I went ahead and used it. I needed a little more, so I bought another bottle. The Woodcraft store had about 6 bottles of tung oil and all of them but one had extensive solids In them. I took the one with no solids in it (the liquid one). It has remained liquid with no polymerization by just keeping air out of it.
Randy

 

[wudnbotluvr]

Sorry. Left out the word Bloxygen.

 

[bwat]

Finally took a few pics...

Purchased in December, kept in finish cabinet, moderate heat - no freezing.


This actually had only about an inch of oil at the top when brought into the house. I placed the bottle a foot away from a floor vent for 24 hours and...

Wow, what a difference. Hope the properties are unchanged?

 

[Dave Peterson]

put a marble in the bottom (or a clean hard pebble) and agitate it just like you would a paint spray can. After you started this thread, my neighbor showed me his bottle of Woodcraft 100% tung oil, and it was doing the same thing. I dropped in a marble and started shaking it around, and it soon remixed itself.

 

[Herb Shelly]

FYI: According to the Tung Oil supplier, the sediment is a natural occurance in the refinement of tung nuts. The amount of sediment varies crop to crop. It their suggestion, I scooped out some of the solids and it performed like tung oil should.