Another Tru-oil question.

[polkat]

What does one normally use to thin Tru-oil?

Thanks!

[Andres Sender]

Mineral spirits, but there's a limit on how much thinning you can do, and it may also depend on how old the stuff is. I never tried turpentine though.

[jack london]

I have never used tru-oil on a violin before. Are you using it exclusively, or as a ground, or.....? I do not know enough about varnish to know, but does it make a reasonable and inexpensive alternative violin varnish? anyone ever use it enough to know?

[C.B.Fiddler]

I don't much about the source, but this article claims to use turpentine for Tru-oil:

Tru-oil

[Oded Kishony]

I used it for a while and thought it was a decent varnish. It tended to dry in the bottle though. I would store the opened bottle upside down so that the crust would form on the bottom instead of the top. It's pretty durable, not super transparent but reasonably so and fairly forgiving in application.

Oded Kishony