Replies

1. 
   forestgirl | Feb 11, 2003 09:17am | #1

   How far apart are these shadows?  Could they be sticker marks (areas where small pieces of wood were placed to keep the stock apart while drying)?  They would probably be very rectangular and fairly narrow in appearance.

   Hope that's not what it is, though.  From what I've read, those areas never finish the same as unaffected wood.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)

1. 
   Boogie | Feb 11, 2003 07:20pm | #2

   No not sticker marks these are very light and close together, on the table I just finished I didn't notice them until I already had the top glued up. I have been using pratt & lambert tonetic pre stain conditioner the best I have found so far, guess I will just have to examine more closely before I buy, and maybe try a darker stain on the boards I have left. Trouble is the shadows just get darker when you stain.

1. 
   forestgirl | Feb 11, 2003 11:28pm | #3

   Seems like we might need Jon Arno on this one.  Hopefully, he'll see the title and give us some input.  A mystery.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)

1. 
   BoJones2 | Feb 12, 2003 09:11pm | #4

   I'll hazard a guess that it could be planer related. ?

   Whatever the reason, good luck on the solution.

   Bo

2. 
   jonsherryl | Feb 15, 2003 12:04am | #5

   Hmmm, "closely spaced shadows running across the grain", sounds like it might be curly figure. About the only thing I can suggest is check the edge of the board to see if there is a wavy pattern to the grain. It wouldn't take much of a ripple to affect the porosity on the face of the board.

   As was just suggested, it could also be planer chatter, but this would result in very narrow, perfectly parallel and perfectly straight bands...and it would be easily cured by using a scraper or by sanding the surface beyond these depressions.

   The presence of reaction wood also changes a wood's porosity, but it usually results in ugly patches or possibly bands parallel to the grain, but not normally across it.

   The only way to deal with this problem may be to thoughly seal the wood with shellac and then use a pigmented top coat, i.e., a varnish stain. In other words, don't even try to deal with the wood's uneven porosity...just bury it.

1. 
   Boogie | Feb 15, 2003 08:30pm | #7

   Well that nailed it, thanks to forest girl and Jon for the help. I have a couple more boards like that in my shop, one day when I'm bored I will have to experiment with them, wonder if they are all from the same tree?

2. 
   GregB126 | Feb 16, 2003 03:00am | #8

   As always, Jon "nailed" it.  For what it's worth, I had a similar experience a long time ago.  I made my son a desk in birch, sort of a parson's table.  It looked pretty good until the finishing.  I stupidly applied Watco's cherry danish oil, not knowing the least bit about what I was doing.  The slightly undulating grain gave the legs a kind of dirty zebra appearance.  The pigment settled, as is logical in afterthought, where the grain turned up a bit towards the surface, presenting itself almost as endgrain in spots.  The grain then turned back down into the leg, away from the surface, being long grain at those points, and allowing far less pigment to lodge there.  All that pride in an almost completed task right down the drain.  Jeff Jewitt recommended I tone the piece with transtint in dewaxed blond shellac.  This did about as good a recovery job as anything could.  The toning darkened the long grain portions a little better, giving the appearance that they sort of "caught up" to the darker zebra stripes.  Since then, I've used birch only sparingly (only as a secondary wood) and always seal it (and cherry) with shellac as a first step, as they are both blotchiness risks.

   Just sharing what was then a hearbreaking result and a painful learning experience.

   Cheers,

   Greg

2. 
   forestgirl | Feb 15, 2003 02:43am | #6

   boogie -- I enticed Jon over here to help out, but he addressed the answer to me.  Here's the link, in case you missed it:

   http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=10568.6

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)