Finish for yellow pine bowl

On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:08:39 -0600, JimR wrote (in message ):

shellac is often used as a sealer over resinous wood, to keep the resin from bleeding through. I like shellac. It is fairly easy to work with dries fast and is easy to clean up with alcohol. It comes in two basic flavors, clear (or white) and amber (or yellow) I have used it on white pine with very nice results. Give a 2 or 3 of coats of shellac, sanding with very fine sandpaper between coats, sand the final coat with very fine sandpaper, and then a coat of hard paste wax and buff. tom koehler

Jim - I would like to say "good luck" on turning that piece of timber. I mean that sincerely. Turning that old stuff for me unless it is something soft like cherry, isn't happening anymore.

Those old timbers (used for structural integrity) are probably white oak or something similar (not red) if they have been there in service that long and are still good enough to consider turning. If that is the case, that wood is probably harder than pavement. They may also be treated with one thing or another, so wear your mask for sure!

Good luck on that. I may well be that it is one of those things that is actually worth the effort. Hope you let us know.

Robert

If it has resin trapped in it, it probably isn't hardwood. The OP is probably right--pine.

Even with a shellac finish, I've had trouble w/pitch on pieces in the past. Best thing to do is to get an old oven off of freecycle or a garage sale, where ever, and cook the blanks for several hours. I think someone how knew told me around 300 degrees outta do it way back when. I think he said several hours or something like that. I may have the notes at home - I'll look tonight. But check w/someone knowledgeable first - I'm going on fuzzy memory. But anyway, that will crystallize the pitch and make it much more tolerable to both turn and finish.

Don't use your wife's oven. You've been warned.

Well, it's yellow, heavy, looks like pine and smells like pine. I think it's yellow pine --

Thanks to everyone for your ideas and comments. Actually, it's been fairly easy to turn except that the resin builds up on the tools quickly and I spend a lot of time keeping the tools clean and sharp. If the first one doesn't do well, I've got four more blocks that I can use to practice different techniques.

On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:01:33 -0600, JimR wrote (in message ):

well, yellow pine resin should be soluble with mineral spirits or turpentine, so cleaning your tools should be easy enough. Best of luck to you. tom koehler

You could also coat most of your chisel with a bees wax or similar