Kevin Aram Oil finish Article

I too have searched for the Kevin Aram article without finding it, but I found another description that I think is very similar to Aram's a while ago. It was called "Well Oiled With Adamson", written by luthier Stewart Adamson and originally published in Woodworker -92. I found it as a downloadable pdf. Unfortunately I can't find the link anymore, but I can send you a copy if you pm me your mail adress.
Anyway here is a short summary of Adamson's article:
The most important factor isn't the oil, but the preparations with Micromesh pads.
In the first step you sand the wood the normal way with abrasives up to 320 grit. But it's not really the normal way. First of all he uses small pieces of abrasive and uses a Staedtler eraser as a sanding block. He uses gentle and long strokes from one end to the other - no short 'back and forth' strokes. When going from one grade to the next he is careful to clean the wood to remove 'coarse grit' from the previous grade.
In the second step he does the same, but with Micromesh pads. Long, gentle strokes with little pressure and cleaning the wood between the grades. When you've done all the way up to 12 000 grit the wood is polished.
In the third step he applies the oil. He recommends Tru-oil but also mentions Antique oil and Teak oil as examples.
He applies the oil in a thin layer with a cotton cloth - no more than a square foot at the time - and then immediately wipe off the excess oil with a dry cloth and continue repeating the apply/wipe off, one square foot at the time.
He lets the oil dry for 24 hours, does a gentle "rub down" with Scotch Brite ultra fine grade or steel wool 0000. No pressure must be applied when doing this. Cleans the surface well before applying the next layer. He recommends 6 layers for non-porous woods and 8 layers for porous woods like spruce.
Then he lets the oil harden for about a week and as a final step he polishes it. First with Scotch Brite polishing type T or 0000 steel wool. Then he uses the 6000, 8000 and 12000 grit Micromesh pads and finally he applies a thin coat of lemon oil.

Once again - I can't promise this is the method that Aram described in his article, but I'm pretty sure it's similar.

/Lars

Francis, how does the method described in Aram’s article compare to what I describe from the Adamson article? Is it the same or at least similar?

I have spoken to Kevin on a number of occasions to discuss oil finishing, I too use Liberon Finishing oil but with a slightly different application regime. Counting up I've finished more than 80 guitars using my method, which seems to work for me including on rosewoods. As with most finishing methods it is important to use a sanding sealer layer, rather than just starting out with the oil, after egg white pore filling, including a plain egg white sizing coat on the top wood, I always use a couple of wash coats of shellac to seal the wood, being especially careful to ensure a good seal on any rosewoods particularly on the black streaking.

BRW finished with Liberon.




Anyway, I have arranged for a phone call with Martin so that I can go over my method and answer any of his questions.