I've recently gotten some maple (called hard maple here in Arkansas- harder than red maple but not as hard as the sugar maple you get in New England) that has some really great striping and crotch feather figure. What's the best finish to use to make the figure "pop" out without radically changing the light color of the wood?
All suggestions and comments will be greatly appreciated!
Two methods of wood finishing, scatter and shine. Shine is best for figure, because the light either returns directly to your eye through the finish or glares back from its surface(incidence=reflection).
Lots of folks talk about oil "popping" the figure, but it's usually an illusion caused by the initial presence of a continuous film which fades as the oil soaks in. Unless you've burnished the wood, or will, don't expect much from oil alone. Go for something which will form that continuous smooth surface for you and keep it there. As already mentioned, oils have a bit of color of their own, which you may use to enhance that plain vanilla color and warm it up a bit, or try to stay as true to what you have as you can. I like resin in my oil, because it gives me the continuous smooth film that allows the best of the wood differences to show. Urethane, alkyd, phenolic are all out there, urethane probably the most color neutral. Keep it thin!
If it's for show only, tough to beat shellac, which is pretty much all resin once the alcohol is gone. Hard, takes a good gloss from the rag or buff, and very transparent. Oil-based finishes may build as fast or faster, but they're thick, because of the cured oil and the mechanical bond between coats, and that can give you some scatter within the finish. NEVER use satin varnishes which have built-in scatter if you want the wood to flash, and never wet sand slurry into the grain for the same reason. The particles in the varnish, or the irregularly shaped dust you stuff into pores which would diffract and give contrast will scatter and obscure.
Lacquer is a skill I've never pursued, but a guy with a sprayer can make a nice neutral finish which is all solids like shellac.
Hi Kip Kip I use pure tung oil (i get it from Lee Valley) a lot, reasons are, simple wipe on and very food safe also. Tung does not yellow as much as most other finishing oils used. and the finish is easily renewed if damaged, unlike lacquer etc. It does take a little longer than some of the other finishes, you can get faster curing tung, also from Lee Valley, but you loose the food safety.
You may not believe it, but I've found that the most dramatic thing you can do to make the grain in Maple pop is to sand the crap out of it. Go up to 1500 or 2000 grit, and it will look like polished glass before any finish touches it. After that, any clearcoat will do.
If you want to pop the figure in a dramatic way, use a darker dye over the whole piece and then sand most of it off for a spectacular result. Spray can shellac makes a good sealer that won't smear it, and then apply your favorite clear finish.
For popping grain I like to first sand to 600 grit, polish with buffing compound, then apply shellac and oil mixture as described for french polishing, alternately dipping the buffing cloth in shellac and oil (tung or linseed or watco)
Kip - If the light wood color is very important, I use a water based finish, high gloss will pop the figure.
To emphasize the figure, I have had good success with applying a light wood dye like minwax golden pecan, and then sanding again before applying the finish - -it darkens the grain pattern a bit, and the sanding returns the highlights.
Good to hear from you! I hope you are doing well... You may want to take a look at the oil finish article below for some information on oil finish layering to enhance the grain on your project.
http://www.woodturn> I've recently gotten some maple (called hard maple here in Arkansas-
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