General Finish Conversion Varnish

• Purchase: Amazon Prime – $120/gallon [Affiliate link]
• Purchase catalyst: Amazon Prime – $13 / (enough for 1 gallon)
• Note: you can possible find this in other places for cheaper with the catalyst included
• Not food safe

Very durable. I’ve used it for some tops, such as my black river bar top and epoxy river placemats. It will show scratches after a while due to dragging stuff over it.

Difficult to apply: requires a spray gun. However, you can apply 3-4 coats in 3-4 hours and be done with it, whereas some other finishes require 12 hours of drying in between. You do have to sand before the final coat, which takes more time.

Requires mixing with a catalyst, which has a specific pot life.

Very water resistant. Not “officially” food safe, but I have eaten off it when food falls on my placemats.

This is my preferred finish for tops; it can be difficult to get it to lay without any defects. When spraying you have to wear a respirator.

Tried & True – Danish Oil or Original Wood Finish

• Website: Tried & True
• Purchase: Tried & True on Amazon – $23 to $25/pint (~$184 gallon) [Affiliate link]
• Food safe

I’ve been using it on my bowls because it is 100% food safe and starts to give a little bit of a shine after a few coats. I’ve been using the basic Danish Oil finish, but I want to try their original finish too. Both have polymerized linseed oil; a very natural finish. I do like this product, but I tend to prefer Osmo Top Oil when I need a food safe finish, as it has a better shine to it, and is a lot more durable.

I prefer it over the related food safe product, Walrus Oil. It tends to add more of a shine. Walrus oil is better for cutting boards and utensils, as linseed oil has a fairly strong smell, whereas the Walrus Oil does not. I lean towards Osmo Top Oil for durability, but I like that this finish is 100% natural.

Target Coatings (Various Options)

• Website/Purchase: https://www.targetcoatings.com
• EM6000 lacquer – slightly amber, less durable, but easier and faster to spray
• EM7000HBL laquer – more clear, more durable, more time between coats
• EM8000cv Conversion Varnish – I haven’t used this yet!
• Not food safe

I’ve used Target Coating’s water based finishes a lot for general woodworking projects and kitchen cabinets. They require you to spray them, which is a non-starter for some people.

Overall, I love the finish for most woodworking, but I don’t like it on epoxy; it tends to orange peel. However, I want to try the conversion varnish!

Spraying on epoxy is tricky: the first coat usually looks really orange-peel like on the epoxy, and has adhesion problems. If you sand it with 400 grit and spray again you’ll get better adhesion. You need to do 3-4 coats, which takes time.

The advantage of this spray over the conversion varnish is that you don’t have to mix any catalyst, and can pour any unused finish back in the can.

The disadvantage is that the finish isn’t quite as durable as the two-part finishes – I can usually dent it with my fingernail. I want to try their Conversion Varnish with CL100 CrossLinker, and I’ll probably purchase it when I run out of the General Finish conversion varnish that I have on hand.

Rubio Monocoat Oil+2C

• Website: Rubio Monocoat Website
• Purchase: Rubio Monocoat on Amazon Prime – $50/0.35L – ($543/gallon!)
• Not food safe, not for cutting boards.

Incredibly expensive for the amount you get, but a little does go a long way and it only requires one coat so you might use half as much. However, you have to guess how much you need and mix it with the accelerator, and once you do this you have to toss any extra that you have.

The oil has quite a strong smell to it when you apply it, but it apparently low VOC. It is really easy to apply.

The biggest disadvantage to this product (especially compared to non-mixed oil products, such as Osmo oil or Odies oil), is the containers. The container for the accelerator is hard to open. It is a small paint-can style container. The lid is hard to put back on, and any extra product left on the lid makes it even harder to open the next time. Eventually you will distort the lid and not be able to get it back on securely enough, and the accelerator will dry out. This will waste a lot of the oil (I lost about 1/4 of a can). Because of this, I do not recommend Rubio Monocoat! I emailed Rubio to tell them about this problem; I’ll update my review when I hear back from them.

However, Rubio does have a lot of stain options. If you are looking to stain your wood then this might be an awesome finish to use.

It is not food safe. I’ve had people argue with me about this, but it explicitly says so on the Rubio website’s FAQs. They also say to not use it on cutting boards. The confusion comes from them listing it as non-toxic. However, in 2021 they did update their website to say it has passed approval for food contact (which is not the same as food safe).