My finisher is doing a clear natural finish on a table I built using birdseye maple. Once he started applying the finish small red areas began to appear in the wood.
He bleached them out and then they turned green. Does anyone know if this is a reaction from natural substances in the wood or is this strictly from the type of finish being used? I’ve never worked with birdseye maple before.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Edited 6/14/2007 4:07 pm ET by chuck1947
Replies
What was the finishing procedure in detail, were dyes used? Also how was the wood prepared, sanding, steel wool, planed and scraped?
John W.
Thanks for the reply. Honestly I'm not exactly sure of the exact procedure my finisher used. My products arrive at the finishers (he's a sub) already sanded and ready.
I don't understand the finishing process all that much hence the reason for having an outside source. I'm pretty sure they typically bleach the wood before finishing but I rarely do "clear" finishes so I'm not sure what he may have done different.
These colored spots are isolated to a few places which leads me to believe that maybe there was some type of random substance on the wood which reacted when he applied the clear.
The problem is that he tried to see if he could lightly sand the spots out and they actually appear to be rather deep.
My wood supplier said he's never heard of this happening with this type of wood.
Very odd.
Iron contaminating the wood from steel wool or dust from grinding tools nearby will cause black or rust red spots to appear on wood if it gets wet from either raising the grain with water, or from applying a water based stain or finish, so that could be a source of your problem.
Another possibility is that your finisher mixes his own dyes from concentrated powders and a tiny bit of red dye powder got airborne and settled on the wood, I have seen this happen several times. The commercial dyes are so concentrated that it only takes a microscopic speck of it to create a good sized spot on the wood when it is dissolved by a layer of finish or water. Since birdseye maple is often stained with a water based dye to bring out the figure of the wood, the chance that powdered dye was being used in the shop is quite good. You may need to have a heart to heart conversation with your finisher.
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
This has been very helpful. Thank you so much!
Well said, John. I was thinking of powdered dye too. It's amazing how invisible a tiny speck of it is until you get it wet.
Yeah, concentrated dyes are amazingly dense. In a past career I had a business that dyed fabric and I never ceased to be amazed at how rich a color you could get on yards and yards of fobric with just a teaspon of dye.
John W.
John,
You can't just use the Redeye removal tool in Irfanview!?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob,
That would work, once you got the cabinet stuffed into the hard drive.
John W.
Wow.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
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