# Slightly confused about Osmo PolyX Oil & Wood Wax Extra Thin



## twodoctors (12 Mar 2018)

Hi all,

I've only just been playing with different finishing products having had less than satisfactory results because of wrong application methods (I think).

With Osmo Oil, I like the simplicity and fairly decent finish it gives (I'm using Stain Clear). However having gone into the website for Osmo, I reaslised that I've been doing it all wrong (and also advised all wrong).

https://www.osmouk.com/sitechapter.cfm? ... 2&page=247

It says it's not compitable for most of the wood I've been putting it on (walnut, sapele, cedar, and sycamore). I should have been using their Wood Wax Finish Extra Thin instead, which is "thinner, so is better absorbed in these oily wood". Does anyone have experience with their extra thin product?

Also how did I make it shiny after 2 coats of Satin Clear? I've tried Chestnut Microcrystalline Wax, but have been having mixed result. I put the stuff on liberally and then wait 20+ minutes and get it buffed with a buffing pad attached to my pillar drill (I know, I'm lazy!). I get some kind of sheen, when I was hoping for a bit of gloss. Should I get the Gloss finish Osmo Oil instead? Or use shellac or TruOil (both of which seemed a bit more work!)?

Thanks.

Adrian


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## CHJ (12 Mar 2018)

Has your oil finish fully cured? if not solvents in wax if applied heavily may be adversely affecting oil skin before they have evaporated.

Microcrystalline wax should be applied very sparingly to a hard sealed (sanding sealer) or fully polymerized oil surface.

This is Microcrystalline on a quick wipe of sanding sealer from this afternoon, thinnest of smears and one minutes max buffing after ten minutes for solvents to disperse.



woods Walnut, Ash & Oak all show a good gloss reflection.


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## twodoctors (12 Mar 2018)

About 48 hours after the last coat of Osmo Oil... is that long enough? (I'm impatient!)


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## custard (12 Mar 2018)

Hang on, Walnut and Sycamore are not oily woods. Rosewood or Teak are genuinely oily woods, some Sapele and some Cedar can be very slightly oily but unlikely to be so much as to require special finishing or gluing techniques.

Osmo has a fairly condensed "gloss spectrum", the glossy variant isn't particularly glossy and the matt variant isn't especially flat. Also bear in mind that an open grained timber like Walnut won't ever be especially glossy without grain filling. If you want simple to apply gloss with Walnut or Sapele either use Danish Oil, brew your own wiping varnish, or if it's not subject to heavy wear use a sanding sealer followed by a (preferably hard) wax. Cedar and Sycamore are pale timbers and any oil based finish turns them a nasty tangerine colour (it gets worse over time in sunlight), there are Osmo tinted oils that work well (I think the one you want is called "Raw") but if gloss is your objective while preserving the timber's pale colour then sanding sealer (personally I prefer shellac sanding sealer to cellulose sanding sealer) plus wax is the simple solution.


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## custard (12 Mar 2018)

twodoctors":3l2lj9of said:


> About 48 hours after the last coat of Osmo Oil... is that long enough? (I'm impatient!)



Yes, provided the room isn't freezing I'll wait no more than 24 hours, and in warmer months I'll usually get a coat on first thing in the morning and then a second coat before closing up the workshop.


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## twodoctors (12 Mar 2018)

"Ingredient-rich hardwood"?

https://www.osmouk.com/sitechaptern.cfm ... e=253#1101


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## custard (12 Mar 2018)

Who knows, a poor translation from the German perhaps?

I've used regular PolyX and the extra thin, it's a coin toss as to which you feel most comfortable with, there really isn't that big a difference. The extra thin was the original product, PolyX is much more recent, maybe they felt there was a loyal user base for the extra thin so kept it on in the product range? Osmo seem to have a lot of almost identical products squeezed into a very small category, personally I don't think all that choice helps either them or their customers much!


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