I am a violinist who makes specialty violin chinrests and have a problem with the finishing. We’ve been using Minwax Antique Oil Finish and they’ve discontinued it, and I’m looking for a substitute.
In finishing these, we have three conflicting issues:
1. The best-sounding woods are skin-irritating and extremely oily; we use Padauk, East Indian Rosewood, and Pau Ferro, so we want to provide a good barrier for the skin. However,
2. We don’t want too much of a barrier- as one maker said:
One of the reasons to use a wood chinrest with not a lot of finish on it is that the wood will absorb the sweat from the chin and neck and thus keep your chin from resting in a slippery pool of sweat when you’re playing. Thus with a chinrest which will absorb some of the moisture from the skin, you’ll have a surer hold on the instrument, and it should be more comfortable.
3. We also want a finish that’s quite strong- the player has their jaw on the chinrest for up to 30 minutes without releasing it, so it has to withstand the heat, sweat, oils, etc., without degrading.
Various suggestions from makers included beeswax (melted right off while playing), lacquer (rubbed off on the jaw), and CA glue (impractical to use). A top guy in the field suggested the Minwax, which has worked very well, after washing the surface natural oils off with acetone.
Nobody among the luthiers really had many other good answers, and guitar finishes are not really a good solution, due to the differences in the skin contact.
Now that AOF is no longer available, I’m looking for some similar product.
I’ve tried Osmo penetrating and finishing oil, but got a lot of complaints of severe skin irritation- I don’t know if it was an insufficient barrier, or perhaps too good, pooling sweat on the surface.
Watco Danish Oil seems to be pushed out of the wood, even with cleaning,
A suggestion was to seal it with shellac, then finish with a topcoat.
So, I really have two questions:
1. Is there a close substitute for Minwax AOF, and
2. If I should really do shellac, what would be a good topcoat, given the requirements of this?
Thank you for making it through this post, and thanks in advance for any replies.
Replies
RandallO, are you familiar with the Musical Instrument Makers Forum mimf.com? I think you might find some expertise there.
By no means an expert, but I thought shellac was the traditional finish to use, even as the topcoat. Noting that both AOF and danish oil are really not oils, but thinned wiping varnishes so they're not quite the same thing.
stantheman,
Thanks for the suggestion- I'll go check them out.
Randall
Reading the msds and technical spec, Minwax antique oil finish is made of 50 % mineral spirits, linseed oil and varnish, it’s about as close as it gets from the danish oil base recipe which is 1/3 of each, you could easily mix your own using mineral spirit, boiled linseed oil and spar varnish in equal parts.
gulfstar.
Thanks so much; I seem to remember seeing that somewhere. I might give that recipe a try.
One of the Tried and True finishes might work.
3steers,
That's another one.
I'm considering dewaxed shellac to hold in the oils and a topcoat.
I'll look into the Tried and True.
That is where knowing what is in the can becomes important and why I usually mix my own, Tried & True Danish oil is 100 pure Linseed Oil, you may want their Varnish oil that is closer to the ingredients you were looking for.
A lot of wooden tool makers used Minwax Antique oil, which is more or less a wiping varnish. Others thought that Waterlox Original and Birchwood Casey True-Oil gave very similar results.
You can never go wrong with a coat or two of dewaxed shellac as a sealer for exotic and oily woods. As far as I know, there are no issues with shellac causing skin or other reactions in people. Shellac, when dried, is used on a lot of foods to make them shiny and pretty. But shellac isn't good, by itself, as a barrier to sweaty skin. It won't hold up. But you could try a coat or two of a wiping varnish on top -- those are oil-based products. Or try a coat or two of water based poly.
Thanks so much for all the suggestions- without AOF I'm probably going to go with dewaxed shellac with a wiping varnish; it sounds as if it will work well.