Thread: Best finish for Huon Pine

I use a lot of Huon Pine and have also had a lot of failures at the finishing stage which can be very frustrating. Oily Huon pine will not allow most finishes to dry. This applies to oil based varnishes, water based varnishes and thinners based lacquers. I find the most reliable finish is an oil. Danish oil works well or, my current preference, Whittlewax hard wax oil. Good luck.

I haven't done a lot with Huon Pine (yet), but have found Danish Oil works well for me on Huon Pine.
Here's a recently completed Jarrah and Huon Pine card box, finished with about 7 coats of my DIY Danish Oil, followed by Renaissance Wax.
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For other finishes, apparently wiping down with acetone before finishing can help prevent issues.

Thanks Rob. That's exactly the info I needed to move forward. It also confirmed what I thought about other finishes. I'll chase up some Danish Oil & give it a go.
Thanks again.

Thanks Mpot. Tassierob said the same thing about Danish Oil. Love the card box - very nice.

Don’t forget shellac! It works really well on everything including Huon Pine.

I use a light Organo oil woodturners finishing oil & the carnauba polish after the oil has set. Most oily wood does well with a scraper to smooth it out & a very hard buff with the torn up flannelette sheet then just wax to give a hard shiny surface.

I have used Feast Watson Scandinavian Oil on Huon pine many times with excellent results. I usually find 4-5 coats results in the level of sheen I'm after. Fewer coats still gives nice results, just not as shiny.

I apply the finish with a scrap of sponge. After letting it sit for a while I wipe the bulk off with loo paper (cheap and disposable) then use a cloth to rub the surface to get a finish nice and smooth.

The longer you leave the oil on before wiping it off the tackier it gets. This, combined with any complex or hard to access shapes which might require slightly harder wiping to remove the excess oil means that I tend to leave longer than the recommended 8 hours between coats to allow the finish to become harder and avoid rubbing through previous coats when wiping off subsequent ones.
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Thanks emmjay. Great advice. Ill keep that in mind when applying the Danish Oil.

All good advice above. I also degrease the Huon surface with acetone or turps before applying the first coat and then wipe off the first two coats 15 minutes after application to fill grain. I use Organoil, Danish Oil and wipe on poly.

Subsequent coats are then applied and wet sanded up through the grits - 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, 4000, etc. Then polished.

Final result should look good, and feel "sensual".