Linseed oil will darken more than tung oil. The catch is that most products sold at the big box stores are labeled "tung oil finish" and have no tung oil at all in them. Most are just ordinary, thinned out varnish. You'd need to find 100% tung oil and that's usually a specialty product from companies that sell to woodworkers.

Try walnut oil. Not a joke. It's one of the few, food-grade oils that actually dries and it's a light yellow color. It won't add much shine either unless you put on a lot of coats. One or two won't make it too glossy. Look for it at well-stocked grocery stores.

Mineral oil is clear but it never dries.

Don't worry too much about darkening the wood. Unlike cherry or mahogany, walnut gets lighter over time as it's exposed to UV.

Thanks for the feedback. How about this which has a bit of beeswax and carnuba?

Mahoneys oil wax

or

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Grandmas-Gold-Premium-Walnut-Oil-and-Beeswax-Wood-Conditioner-/221598135265?pt=Kitchen_Tools_Gadgets&hash=item33984733e1

I use a mix of 2 parts beeswax/3 parts mineral oil on the wooden toys I make for my Grandson. It's very safe.

Thanks all.

After the comments here and a bit of research I'm going to try a coat or two of walnut oil, let it absorb overnight then finish with this walnut - beeswax combo and buff it a bit. [Etsy seems to be edging out eBay for a few items it seems.] -

https://www.etsy.com/listing/217161201/arborvore-wood-conditioner-2-oz-tin?ref=favs_view_2

I like tung oil as a finish. We get ours at our local paint store in cans that are approximately pint sized.

Reading good things about tung oil. Any experience is varying coats of walnut and tung?

I did a light coat of walnut and it has set nicely with a satin like finish. I'm going to do one more coat then 1 coat of the the walnut beeswax paste when it comes.

Hoping this is not Is this too much Again i don't want really too much shine.

Hi,
Walnut oil is a non-drying oil, IOW it sits there and does not polymerize into a finish the way tung oil, boiled linseed oil (drying-type oils) do. The non-drying oil in the wood will cause the drying oil to behave differently, and I mean possibly get gummy and gross.
Pick one type of oil and stick with it. Personally, I like the walnut oil idea. If it gets rancid you can remove it with paint stripper.
Another idea would be a salad bowl finish product, which like a vegetable oil, is food safe, but provides a surface film unlike oil which would soak in completely.
Casey

Walnut oil does dry. See the reference below.

Drying Oils

Tung oil is a good oil. You just have to be careful to get the real stuff and not some mislabeled product from the local hardware store. I've never combined that and walnut oil in the same project but it probably does work. I've also never used straight tung oil and have only used varnishes made using that oil. The varnishes are good but thick and shiny and not what you are looking for.

For your purposes, any drying oil that doesn't darken will be fine. When you're just putting very thin coats on the surface, one oil isn't going to provide much more protection than another oil. The method you're using now will work fine so long as you're happy with the look of it.

If things get too shiny (shouldn't with just three coats) you can still buff it out with very fine sandpaper such as p600 to dull it back down.

Hi,
after reading the linked article I learned that if walnut oil is sun-bleached it can be used to mix artist's oil paint. The sun bleaching process is stated as taking three months. The same can be achieved by sun-bleaching raw linseed oil. The acidic compound that permits raw linseed oil to dry, albeit at a glacial pace, is also present in walnut oil, but at even lower concentration. The time factor for walnut oil to cure must be weeks, if not months, unless more of the drying compound could be added.
Oil finishes prepared for use on woodwork do not have cure times like that, more like some number of days not some months.
I'm slightly skeptical of that website, it was last updated in 2002, and so many spelling errors.

Altare, Nice reference for the oils. I have a concern that this reference seems to be talking about the oils as used in picture painting. I wonder what their qualities are when put on wood. I accept the drying part but what other reactions are present? I remember reading something a very long time ago that linseed oil will eventually start breaking down the wood fibers (never in our lifetime, but). I wonder if any of these other oils have similar properties or if the linseed thing is bunk.

I know some types of petroleum based oils will break wood down fast. I've actually seen that type of damage and I think it was axle grease or something like that.

Leads me to wonder why people like to use mineral oil so much? It's part of the petroleum family. Maybe the solvents have been removed but I've not looked into that because I don't care much for it as a woodworking oil.

The reference I linked is geared towards painting but it also provides more detail about the actual nature of the various oils than any of the woodworking references I've found. Most of them just rattle off the list of oils along with a few generic facts about them.