For those of you who have used most everything for finishing:
If you had to pick one finish to bring out the most chatoyance of a piece of figured wood, what would that finish be? Say for the sake of argument it won’t be a table top, so it won’t be exposed to the hazards of a wet drink, or alchohol or high heat, or even something setting on it and scratching it.
Now that you’ve picked your finish, do you have any techniques associated with that finish that you would use to bring out the figure of the wood?
Have at it…
Replies
What, did I spell "chatoyance" wrong? Nobody here ever work with figured wood?
Boiled linseed oil followed by your favorite clear finish.
That's the simple answer. It also depends on what kind of wood you're using. For example, maple sometimes gets a light coat of brown dye which is then sanded off almost completely. The remaining dye stays in the larger wood pores and gives you better contrast in the figured wood.
Edited 2/4/2003 1:23:34 PM ET by Ben_Malamed
Hey thanks Ben. Boiled linseed followed by conversion varnish it will be. The varnish at the request of the customer.
Clampman
Kevin,
I too am anxiously awaiting answers, as I need this information within a half hour. Hopefully, we will get lucky and Michael Dresdner, Jeff Jewitt and Jon Arno are all preparing their responses on lunch break.
If we are extremely lucky, they will all say the same thing.
I believe Michael rates linseed at the top of the list, followed by tung, shellac and lacquer. I don't see why, once the grain is filled, any clear finish - such as conversion varnish or water white lacquer- wouldn't enhance the effect. Or at least, not counteract it.
Good luck.
Clampman
I like water-based dyes with shellac and then varnish on top. See my latest post titled "Mission Style Picture Frames" in the Gallery. The finishing schedule is described.
lp
Kevin,
MD suggest to "Pop the grain" by this site: http://www.michaeldresdner.com/dres7.shtml
Dale
I have to say, it's nice to see such a uniform response to a question on Knots. Even better- it's a simple solution!
To take this a step further, are there any preferences here as to brands of BLO? I know with finishes sold as "tung oil", you have to be careful because very few are pure tung oil, and some aren't tung oil at all! Is it the same case with BLO? I was at one website that was selling Tried & True Varnish as it's pick for BLO...
>>Tried & True Varnish as it's pick for BLO...
No, that is not boiled linseed oil or even close. What you want is pretty generic stuff. Whatever you get at the local hardware store or paint store will be fine. Maybe even available at the Home Center too.
>>Tried & True Varnish as it's pick for BLO...
Tried & True Varnish is Polymerized Linseed Oil and Natural Resin Varnish
Tried & True Original Wood Finish is Polymerized Linseed Oil and Beeswax
Tried & True Danish Oil is all Polymerized Linseed Oil
Kevin - I decided to jump in since there are no dissenting votes and I am no fan of BLO. Linseed oil has a muddying effect on wood and causes a blotching/mottled effect on woods prone to the problem. It also darkens with age and in some cases can turn dark brown/black.
There is no simple answer to your original question. It depends on the wood and what coloring you want. Take cherry for example - I have done a number of samples with and without linseed oil and I very much dislike the effect the oil has on the wood (you can see some samples at this link - http://www.boomspeed.com/firstfinish/CherryFinishes01a.htm ) For best effect on cherry, I much prefer dyes and toners.
I will be doing similar testing on other woods (I have the wood, time is the problem) and will do samples just like cherry. I know I like dyes on maple, but haven't done any BLO samples for comparison.
Paul
F'burg, VA
Paul S,
Thanks for the link, very informative on finishing cherry. Under your Stains & Dyes heading, which manufacturers of stain do you use? I noticed you have no unevenness or blotching of cherry under this category.
Lar
Lar - one stain sample is an oil modified waterborn from Target Coatings - http://www.targetcoatings.com - called Queen Anne Cherry. They don't have stains on their web site yet but you can talk with them about it over the phone or their forum. The remainder of the stain samples are from M.L. Campbell - http://www.mlcampbell.com/pages/home.asp .
With both brands, I was able to use the stains on bare wood, sanded to 150 grit, without any blotching, and with very even coloring on solid and veneered wood. These stains work so much better than the stains most folks are familiar with.
Paul
F'burg, VA
Thanks Paul, I will definitely try Target Coatings and M.L. Campbell.
Lar
Check the FWW index there was an artical on finishing curly or quilted maple by one of the finishing gurus mentioned in this thread which mention 2 dyeing steps followed with a top coat. If you don't want to dye it then I'd go with linseed oil and lacquer.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid - John Wayne
I don't have a whole lot of experience, but here goes: I recently worked with flame birch and tested BLO, Formby's tung, shellac, and satin Polycrylic (water based), also layering shellac over the BLO and Formby's.
I found the Polycrylic to be the best for what I wanted, which was to preserve the whitish, slivery effect of the flame, add the least amount of color, and add depth. Maybe my techniques were at fault, maybe I didn't take the BLO far enough, but it wasn't working the way I hoped it would.
Now, I will say that the BLO definitely brought out the grain more than the others did, but it didn't quite bring out the chatoyence.
FWIW.
Kevin
I had a bad experience with BLO on curly maple. I made a clock once with 4 kinds of male - curly, birds eye, soft, and hard. They all looked the same before, but very different after BLO. The only one that looked good was the birds-eye. The curly maple took on a curious grey-green tone. So although I use BLO and shellac for most projects, I run a test piece before I use it on maple now.
Kevin,
To flash the chatoyance of curly or fiddleback maple I would use straight polymerized tung oil, but I have not been able to find it for years at typical paint stores in this area. For oak (1/4 sawn) I would use the long process of fumed oak etc i.e a "Mission" finish. For Lacewood and other tropical exotics, I would use lacquer. For curly cherry or highly figured walnut I would use polyurethanes. For quilted mahogany I would use the chemistry of fancy products I can't spell- . Anyhoo, it seems to depend on the wood you are using and the particular play of available light on the piece. When I ship bowls to galleries and want to show off chatoyance, I ask gallery owners to only display a piece under natural light and at eye level. Doubtful if the galleries ever do same though. And few gallery owners or even the typical customer seem to really appreciate the gem like quality of shimmering wood. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.... But in general (despite the final finish product decision)to make a piece really shine in such a way it is necessary to finish the bare wood to about 600 grit (turned projects) or handplaned (furniture) perfectly. The wood should flash even without a finish. Then, each coat of finish must be practically perfect since any flaw will detract from the end result.
sawick
I like urethane varnish since it give the figure tremendous depth. And since I never use stains, I can easily apply enough coats to fill the grain (hate open grain as it collects dirt). I have a coffee table of tiger maple that is like one of those prismatic signs, the pattern changes completely by looking at it from different angles.
Preserving chatoyance was a real issue for me on a recent project. I wanted to keep the amazing figure in a pommele sapele veneer. I ended up using a nitro lacquer after filling the grain with pumice and then oiling with Liberon Finishing oil.
I was pleased with the result and it did not take too long to achieve. The colour was slightly muddied because the friend I made it for wanted a dark colour that required me to add umber pigment to the pumice fill. For my own pleasure, I would not have stained it this way and I would have French polished it - although with the very open grain of the veneer, that takes forever and still requires a pumice filler.
You can see some more of it here (http://christopherknight.net/Ruth's_Bookcase_2.htm)
Increasing Chatoyance In Wood with Finish
If I had to pick one it would be the Pine resin found in the Bio Poly NT. Boiled linseed oil is raw linseed oil with driers. Not exactly the highest quality oil. Not much body to it either. I wouldn't rely on that for long term results. Boiled linseed oil still has many of what woud be considered impurities in it. Things people might notice from these impurities include yellowing, muddying or drying out. A good oil has more work done to it and is not sold at Lowes or Home Depot. BLO looks good the first month because it's wet and expanded, but then fades and yellows quickly for lack of density. It is low viscosity and so penetrates easily but there are better way to achieve grain illumination that lasts.
The pine resin in Bio Poly NT is a clear, hard, solid resin that is liquified and kept in it's liquid state until it is used. Then when it dries it is carried deep into the wood by solvent and ultra filtered, special linseed oil and resin. Then when it dries it returns to its solid state, flexing slightly, allowing light to enter deep into the wood creating the chatoyance effect; a 3D quilting movement as light enters and exits in different directions. I don't know of any other resin that does this as well, or perhaps a better term would be as beautifully. You could exercise the same principle with Bis A but it doesn't look right. There is something about tree resins in wood that looks right; feels good to touch.
Heating the wood and the product will take it to the highest level, lowering viscosity, opening the wood up and allowing it to take the largest drink possible. It then cools down, closes in on the dense resin and has maximum surface density. The only time this step is possible is during the first coat on raw wood; the thirsty dry state.
That's the first step. Clear coats after that will depend on the wood type and the desired result. Many fine wood working peices don't require much protection and so are fine with just a couple coats of Bio Poly and maybe a polish. Other items need to be protected more. A good clear finish will clarify what the first coats reveal. Shellac is used to give amber tone to some pieces and Cashew resin is used instead of Shellac when more durability is required. Conversion Varnish, 2K Urethanes and Post Cat and Pre Catalyzed Lacquers are all very popular. I don't mess with that stuff because of toxicity. The cashew and nano polymer are all I have found necessary and still get great chatoyancy.
This is an advertising post, by Tom Rioux who signed off on the MSDS for the product mentioned. According to the maker's web pages, It consists of a special grade of oxidized (polymerized) linseed oil, pine rosin, with a small amount of D-limonene used as solvent and possibly for the citrus scent. Rosin and linseed oil were common ingredients in 18th century varnish recipes, with turpentine as thinner if needed. D-limonene and turpentine are chemically related and would work rather similarly. There are a lot of variations as how these ingredients might be manufactured into the product so I can't speak directly for it's properties in this incarnation.. Certainly the linseed oil/rosin (colophony) varnish was considered a poor one in the earlier period. But the Bio-poly isn't being applied as a varnish, it's directions treat it as if it were an oil/varnish mixture, calling for application with excess then all wiped from the surface. I suspect it will work much better in that format.
Observations From the Amateur Perimeter
>Urethanes and Post Cat and Pre Catalyzed Lacquers are all very popular. I don't mess with that stuff because of toxicity. <
That is important to me as well. On the bubinga dining table we made the middle board was vastly different than the others. Being rather limited in my local choice of wood, they ordered this batch in just for my crazy project, I accepted it, not realizing just how different it was to look with finish on it. One can only mess up the show room floor so much planing crud off planks before one finds them selves out the door, alone in the parking lot facing a closed sign and no wood to take home.
Who does he think he is anyway KRENOV ? !
Anyway this one plank looked as if its big O' bubinga father had spent some time across town with a slim, little, bocote. I put it down the middle of the table like a built in runner so when it hollered "here I am look at me " at least it would sorta look right.
The whole point of this novella is that it had extreme golden chatoyance contrasted by the predominant blacks running through it. Beautiful but a bit distracting. I had put on Maloof over a couple of other secret ingredients and so the chatoyance was high.
I then put garnet shellac over that and it cut the chatoyance back and tied the appearance of the planks together as if I had put a colored glaze on. Which effectively I had. The table looks right now.
Point being; for chatoyance one may want to avoid glazes or the richer colored shellacs. Some oils seem to bring out the chatoyance as others have described above. To use an extreme and expensive example : pure artist grade linseed oil, like for oil painting on canvas, I know from my investigations, dries clearish and wrinkle free as opposed to the stuff mentioned from the local builder's supply so I concur with that.
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