Steve Schlumpf
05-30-2012, 3:34 PM
I turned this really nice piece of Black Ash a couple of months ago and decided to experiment on it with gild crème. I had gotten an email from Terry Scott (fabulous turner from NZ) suggesting I give Baroque Gilders Paste a try. It is turpentine based, so once it dries you can put a finish over it. Terry uses it on a lot of his turnings and it does create some very interesting layered colors!
I dyed the HF purple and wire brushed the piece to open up the grain a little. I applied some silver colored gild crème and rubbed it into the grain. The idea was to have a distinct contrast between the purple and the silver… what I created was a sparking mud! It was my fault for not thinking things through but I was mixing things that were not meant to be used together. Example – the RIT dye used will move with water, the Baroque crème will move with mineral spirits and even though things looked good before I applied the clear topcoat… everything got messed up once it was applied.
The first time I did this, I applied some wipe-on poly and it just smeared the gild crème around instead of leaving it in the grain as planned. So, using mineral spirits, I removed all the gild crème, let things dry and then reapplied the crème. WOP didn’t work, so a water-based poly should! Nope, crème sat there just fine but the purple dye smeared all over creating another – but this time – purple – mess!
I cleaned everything up once again, applied more dye and the crème… and then tried sealing it with some spray shellac. Well, once again I should have known better than to try and spray something in a shop that was 55*! So after the globs of shellac dried, I sanded the piece down and set it aside…. for many weeks!!!
This past weekend I managed to get in some shop time because of all the rain we were getting and decided to either try and salvage the Black Ash HF… or toss it!
Sanded the form back to bare wood, dyed it with RIT purple dye and after the wood was dry, used a brass BBQ grill brush and scrubbed the heck out of the grain! I wanted to create multiple colors and also offer a variety of textures… I think it worked. The purple looks amazing in person and the gold highlights were caused by using oil based wipe-on poly.
Black Ash, 7.75” in diameter x 6.25” high.
233306 233307 233308 233309
233310 233311 233312
As always, your opinions, critiques and comments are welcomed!
Sorry for such a lengthy description - thanks for looking!
I dyed the HF purple and wire brushed the piece to open up the grain a little. I applied some silver colored gild crème and rubbed it into the grain. The idea was to have a distinct contrast between the purple and the silver… what I created was a sparking mud! It was my fault for not thinking things through but I was mixing things that were not meant to be used together. Example – the RIT dye used will move with water, the Baroque crème will move with mineral spirits and even though things looked good before I applied the clear topcoat… everything got messed up once it was applied.
The first time I did this, I applied some wipe-on poly and it just smeared the gild crème around instead of leaving it in the grain as planned. So, using mineral spirits, I removed all the gild crème, let things dry and then reapplied the crème. WOP didn’t work, so a water-based poly should! Nope, crème sat there just fine but the purple dye smeared all over creating another – but this time – purple – mess!
I cleaned everything up once again, applied more dye and the crème… and then tried sealing it with some spray shellac. Well, once again I should have known better than to try and spray something in a shop that was 55*! So after the globs of shellac dried, I sanded the piece down and set it aside…. for many weeks!!!
This past weekend I managed to get in some shop time because of all the rain we were getting and decided to either try and salvage the Black Ash HF… or toss it!
Sanded the form back to bare wood, dyed it with RIT purple dye and after the wood was dry, used a brass BBQ grill brush and scrubbed the heck out of the grain! I wanted to create multiple colors and also offer a variety of textures… I think it worked. The purple looks amazing in person and the gold highlights were caused by using oil based wipe-on poly.
Black Ash, 7.75” in diameter x 6.25” high.
233306 233307 233308 233309
233310 233311 233312
As always, your opinions, critiques and comments are welcomed!
Sorry for such a lengthy description - thanks for looking!