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So when I got my OSP Virtuoso a while back, I went down the rabbit hole of "should I seal my blade, and what glue should I use to prevent the wood being damaged when I change rubbers".... said rabbit hole is full of horror stories about how your blade might be damaged if you don't seal the blade and you don't use the right glue.
OSP says nothing on their site about whether to seal or not, but I did find one solitary post from an OSP representative, buried deep in one of countless debate threads on sealings, that said "don't bother sealing OSP blades, it's not necessary since the quality of wood is so high".... we'll get back to this later...,.,
Despite this stray comment, the rest of the horror story comments had me spooked, so rather than using plain old Butterfly Free Chack that I usually use, I got some supposedly great glue and sealer. I'll refrain from saying which ones, because that's not the point here.
I had big problems with both the glue and the sealer. With the sealer, the glue wouldn't stick to it unless I sanded it, and when I sanded it it came off too easily.
The glue was a disaster. Upon drying it caused the rubber to curl up severely, and trying to add additional coats caused the first coat to come loose, balling up and immediately ruining the glue job such that I had to give up and remove the glue.... which did NOT come off easily.
So out of pure impatience I said screw it and used good 'ol Butterfly Free Chack, with no sealer, and as usual I got a perfect glue job with it.
And now today, a couple months later, I removed one of the rubbers in order to try a new one.... the rubber came off no problem at, with zero damage to the wood.
The point of this story is that maybe it's more about the quality of the wood, and less about what glue you use. And maybe said high quality wood also doesn't require sealer.
The OSP blade is indeed very high quality, and sure enough it suffered no damage at all, despite having no sealer and using plain old Butterfly Free Chack (which is supposedly the worst offender for damaging blades). AND the OSP has limba outer layers, which is supposedly very susceptible to damage.
The irony in all of this is that people seem more likely to worry about sealing their blade and using fancy non-damaging glue because the blade is of such high quality... when in fact maybe the quality is what allows you to avoid having to use these things. Just a theory, based on my experience.
OSP says nothing on their site about whether to seal or not, but I did find one solitary post from an OSP representative, buried deep in one of countless debate threads on sealings, that said "don't bother sealing OSP blades, it's not necessary since the quality of wood is so high".... we'll get back to this later...,.,
Despite this stray comment, the rest of the horror story comments had me spooked, so rather than using plain old Butterfly Free Chack that I usually use, I got some supposedly great glue and sealer. I'll refrain from saying which ones, because that's not the point here.
I had big problems with both the glue and the sealer. With the sealer, the glue wouldn't stick to it unless I sanded it, and when I sanded it it came off too easily.
The glue was a disaster. Upon drying it caused the rubber to curl up severely, and trying to add additional coats caused the first coat to come loose, balling up and immediately ruining the glue job such that I had to give up and remove the glue.... which did NOT come off easily.
So out of pure impatience I said screw it and used good 'ol Butterfly Free Chack, with no sealer, and as usual I got a perfect glue job with it.
And now today, a couple months later, I removed one of the rubbers in order to try a new one.... the rubber came off no problem at, with zero damage to the wood.
The point of this story is that maybe it's more about the quality of the wood, and less about what glue you use. And maybe said high quality wood also doesn't require sealer.
The OSP blade is indeed very high quality, and sure enough it suffered no damage at all, despite having no sealer and using plain old Butterfly Free Chack (which is supposedly the worst offender for damaging blades). AND the OSP has limba outer layers, which is supposedly very susceptible to damage.
The irony in all of this is that people seem more likely to worry about sealing their blade and using fancy non-damaging glue because the blade is of such high quality... when in fact maybe the quality is what allows you to avoid having to use these things. Just a theory, based on my experience.
