Need to finish pine the old school way.

[Brian Ashton]

I've been doing a lot of work of late with only hand tools and want to continue it through to the finishing process also.

All the work has been done is in pine and I'm very competent in the typical finishing procedures of sanding sealer, then tinted lacquer, then distressing, then rubbed on/rubbed off dark stain, and then final lacquer coat route... but I no longer have access to the equipment to pull that off and for the most part don't want to.

So I need to bone up on how to to do old school finishing i.e. brushes, shellac, stains, and elbow grease...

Any suggestions and or food for thought.

[Jim Koepke]

Not sure if this counts, but most of the time I give a coat of a 50 - 50 mix of turpentine and boiled linseed oil as a base.

Any stain would likely go on before the shellac.

jtk

[Chris Hachet]

With pine, I prefer to use dew axed shellac from Zinser...you can buy it as seal coat at your nearest big box store as Sealcoat. I usually just thin it a bit and rag it on, although you can use a good quality china bristle brush. The brush does not have to be entirely cleaned, as you can just run your brush through some denatured alcohol and then wrap it...fresh alcohol when your ready for the next use of that brush will loosen it right back up.

I follow up with either A water based finish, or a couple of light coats of Waterlox wiping varnish. I use the synthetic steel wool/grey finishing pads to clean it up between coats, and usually finish it off with a couple of coats of wax...a shoe shining brush works great to buff oddly shaped surfaces such as table legs and chair legs.


I prefer to not stain pine, as almost any stain that is put on pine usually looks like crap.

Just my two cents.

[Prashun Patel]

Try your hand at hand rubbing an oil finish or oilvarnish finish. If u have the patience, these provide a great feeling finish.

[Bill Houghton]

You might see if your library has any books on finishing. That would give you an overview and comprehensive approach.

[steven c newman]

264614Pine tabletop, on some barn wood (ash, oak???) to match the old chair. Poured some BLO in a plastic tub, added a like amount of varnish, stirred until mixed. Apply with just a cheap,old brush. Steel wool to rub it smooth, and re-coat. Rubbed down with an old, clean T-shirt when the finish was barely tacky to a fingertip. Rubbed with lots of elbow grease. Table was built to MATCH the colour of the chair. Top was out of a side 1x10 from a waterbed frame.

[Chris Hachet]

came out pretty good!

[Hilton Ralphs]

Get yourself a copy of Fine Woodworking #193. Article on pine finishing that makes the wood look like a million bucks.

Well worth the read.

Seriously.

[Chris Griggs]

Get yourself a copy of Fine Woodworking #193. Article on pine finishing that makes the wood look like a million bucks.

Well worth the read.

Seriously.

That's a good article I'd also recommend any reading you find by Jeff Jewitt, he's got a lot of great simple finishing techniques.

Also, consider seedlac (a very recent discovery for me). I finished the cabinet I posted last week with Dark Brown Biyisaki Seedlac and the tone (its not really dark brown, more carmel) really adds some nice age to the piece w/o having to deal with dyes or stains. That was maple and I haven't tested it on pine yet, but I imagine it would look just as nice.

[Chris Hachet]

I used Amber shellac on a pine book case for our family room...my teenage children (all 4 of them!) Thought it was one of the best looking pieces in the house. Seriously. Even their friends liked it. When you can impress a jaded teenager with a woodworking project in pine...just sayin...

[Hilton Ralphs]

When you can impress a jaded teenager...just sayin...
Ain't this the truth!

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

My last project in pine was my sawbenches, out of 2-by construction lumber. I just slapped a lot of linseed oil on them. After a couple of years in the sun (but out of the weather) and just a bit of getting dirty, they've developed a lovely look.

[Brian Ashton]

Thx guys for the tips. Has given me good food for thought. I'm trying to keep it as close to 19th century work practices as possible. So far no electrons have been harmed in the making of the project... Other than for lights.

Over the decades I was doing this for a money I deliberately avoided finishing as much as possible so I'm quite weak on technique other than to blast away with tinted lacquers and then let the junior guy sand it...

So far I'm thinking a very dilute mix of shellac (which I will mix myself) to seal the fibres to eliminate any blotchyness and sanded back then,

Possibly a tinted rubbing varnish or regular strength shellac applied then,

Stand back a few yards and throw handfuls of stuff at the cabinet to dent and distress then,

A very dark water based stain rubbed on and wiped off to accentuate the dents then,

Final coat (clear if the color wanted has been achieved) and sand smooth and maybe a bees wax and buff...

Never played with boiled linseed oil. Closest I've gotten was danish oil but it doesn't build up a layer, does boiled linseed oil.

Anyone know what the Amish use?

[dennis davidson]

I stumbled on this method thru trial and error, not sure it should be compatible materials but I have projects that are several years old without any durability issues.

i use a thinned shellac (1/2-1 lb cut) for the wash coat, lightly sand with dry ~400 paper, then apply a
base coat of a gel based stain (I dilute it by using a rag dipped in mineral spirits and then the gel.
recoat with shellac and then apply multiple coats of stain and shellac until you get the tone your looking for.
i usually use 2-3 different color stains to achieve the look I want.
the final coat is usually shellac but a varnish/poly topcoat works also.

the oil base stain should take hours - overnight to cure, but thinned with spirits I can follow up the shellac coat within an hour or two, again without any separation of layers, blistering, etc.

hope this is usefull, I get some beautiful tones on pine using this method.

[Mark Salomon]

I don't think either the Amish or our ancestors stood back and threw handfuls of stuff at their precious furniture to distress them. I thought you wanted "old school"? In any case, if you want a more traditional approach here is one that I use. One of the problems with pine is that early and late wood take stain differently. You can give your piece an even aging by staining it with a strong tea solution--this lightly stains/ages both early and late wood evenly. Of course, it will raise the grain so you'll need a couple of coats with light sanding between coats. Next, use a wipe on oil varnish (or a commercial finish like Minwax Antique Oil Finish), applying it and rubbing it out with 0000 steel wool. Once you have a nice oil rubbed finish you can either leave it if it is not going to get much use or wipe on an oil based topcoat like General Finishes seal coat. Let dry for a few days and then evenly rub out with steel wool.

[Brian Ashton]

I don't think either the Amish or our ancestors stood back and threw handfuls of stuff at their precious furniture to distress them. I thought you wanted "old school"?

It's made out of recycled pine that already has damage (screw and nail holes, big divots from the old hardware...) so I'm going to accentuate it a bit.

The tea stain was mentioned earlier so I think I'll give it a look see... Thx guys

[Kurt Cady]

Get yourself a copy of Fine Woodworking #193. Article on pine finishing that makes the wood look like a million bucks.

Well worth the read.

Seriously.
Anyone care to provide the title of the article?

[Chris Griggs]

Anyone care to provide the title of the article?

"Best Finish for Pine"

By. Thomas E. Wisshack

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

How permanent is a tea-based stain? My experiments with it years ago found it began to fade pretty quickly, but I may have been expecting too much or not doing it properly.

[Phil Thien]

All I've got to say is, this is a great thread.

[Jim Koepke]

How permanent is a tea-based stain?

Not sure, but I have some stains from the bottom of my coffee cup that have been around for years.

jtk

[william sympson]

Anyone have a PDF of the article to post?

[Chris Griggs]

Anyone have a PDF of the article to post?

Just sign up for the free 14 day trial a FWW online membership (assuming you haven't already before, and thus still can) and if you don't actually want the membership cancel before the trial ends (jeez, I sound like and infomercial)

[Chris Griggs]

Hi Brian. Wanted to show you this. I'm putting some finish on my lap desk today (been on vacation and head back to work tomorrow so want to get this DONE today).

I had some Thai/Siam Seedlac mixed up so I decided to go ahead and use it on this project. The Thai/Siam is a little more reddish/amberish than the "brown" seedlac I mentioned earlier but they impart a similar color to the wood.

In this photo you can see the tone of the finished parts against the unfinished interior. The finished part has a coat of BLO with 2 coats of seedlac on top of it. I'll probably add a top coat of something harder at least on the lid, but for something that won't see the type of abuse that a lap desk will, I would just build up a couple more thin coats of seedlac, maybe wax it, and call it done.

Anyway its not a great pic, not the nicest wood ever (standard home store pine), and the finish isn't complete, but hopefully it at least gives you an idea of the tones you can get from shellacs and seedlacs. The coat of BLO also adds to the tone as well...its a bit lighter if you don't first put the oil down.

265079

[Chris Hachet]

Again, nice looking work, Chris.

[Chris Griggs]

Again, nice looking work, Chris.

Thanks Chris. I've got a couple things I'm gonna to try to wrap up today, install some hardware, rub out some finish etc...