George Overpeck
12-31-2013, 11:34 PM
Hey all - I'm looking for thoughts on a finishing program I have in mind.
I've been doing some mid-thin work that looks fairly nice with a deep penetrating finish, there are some translucent areas of heavy spalting and the whole piece can look generally great because of the ability to see into the wood. I've been using my own variation on the hawaian style of immersing the piece multiple times in the finish- I'm using lacquer while they are using poly or danish oil mixes.
When I do this dipping finish the work comes out of the bath saturated (and pretty!), then it cures and becomes less pretty, goes back in and comes out pretty, and dries slightly better with each dip. My idea of what is happening is that the lacquer deep in the wood is becoming thicker with each cure cycle until I have a very high penetration of dried laquer, it gets a surface finish and it's good. The attached photo is an example of this coming out well in terms of translucence, depth and clarity.
278639
278613
So, looks great but time intensive and more relevant, it's tough to do at this time of year in Alaska because it's off-gassing too much to cure inside and too cold to cure outside. Even if I put pieces in the greenhouse I've only got a few hours curing time on a sunny day. They take a long time to cure because you are migrating the solvents out of a lot of lacquer.
I was thinking of oil combinations as an alternative - mineral oil + a polymerizing oil as a topcoat, or mineral oil + lacquer, shellac etc. I thought I'd check in with the SMC community before I started throwing money around.
Here are a few things I suspect about mineral oil that I might be wrong about, feel free to correct me if so-
- I've read that it has virtually no evaporation at room temperature. So, maybe the need to refresh a mineral oil finish in treenware comes mostly from the oil's continuing migration into and distribution in the wood + handling rather than "drying".
- wood can absorb a lot more oil than "once a day for a week, once a month for a year" can put in it.
- the "muddying" aspect sometimes associated with mineral oil come more from the wax which is usually used with it which collects any particulate matter it contacts.
I guess my questions are these - how do you think appearance would hold up 5 years down the road in a piece which was saturated with MO, then given a surface coat to seal it in? If you think the oil would break down or evaporate, could it be mixed with the next less volatile product up the chain, paraffin?
Do you think that MO would give the same amount of translucence as a hardening finish? I've been wondering if the immersion technique is so attractive because the hardened finish is somehow propping open the fibers to let light pass through.
Also, I'm not stuck on MO. I'm just looking to minimize fumes while getting maximum penetration into the wood.
Thanks for reading so much, looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
I've been doing some mid-thin work that looks fairly nice with a deep penetrating finish, there are some translucent areas of heavy spalting and the whole piece can look generally great because of the ability to see into the wood. I've been using my own variation on the hawaian style of immersing the piece multiple times in the finish- I'm using lacquer while they are using poly or danish oil mixes.
When I do this dipping finish the work comes out of the bath saturated (and pretty!), then it cures and becomes less pretty, goes back in and comes out pretty, and dries slightly better with each dip. My idea of what is happening is that the lacquer deep in the wood is becoming thicker with each cure cycle until I have a very high penetration of dried laquer, it gets a surface finish and it's good. The attached photo is an example of this coming out well in terms of translucence, depth and clarity.
278639
278613
So, looks great but time intensive and more relevant, it's tough to do at this time of year in Alaska because it's off-gassing too much to cure inside and too cold to cure outside. Even if I put pieces in the greenhouse I've only got a few hours curing time on a sunny day. They take a long time to cure because you are migrating the solvents out of a lot of lacquer.
I was thinking of oil combinations as an alternative - mineral oil + a polymerizing oil as a topcoat, or mineral oil + lacquer, shellac etc. I thought I'd check in with the SMC community before I started throwing money around.
Here are a few things I suspect about mineral oil that I might be wrong about, feel free to correct me if so-
- I've read that it has virtually no evaporation at room temperature. So, maybe the need to refresh a mineral oil finish in treenware comes mostly from the oil's continuing migration into and distribution in the wood + handling rather than "drying".
- wood can absorb a lot more oil than "once a day for a week, once a month for a year" can put in it.
- the "muddying" aspect sometimes associated with mineral oil come more from the wax which is usually used with it which collects any particulate matter it contacts.
I guess my questions are these - how do you think appearance would hold up 5 years down the road in a piece which was saturated with MO, then given a surface coat to seal it in? If you think the oil would break down or evaporate, could it be mixed with the next less volatile product up the chain, paraffin?
Do you think that MO would give the same amount of translucence as a hardening finish? I've been wondering if the immersion technique is so attractive because the hardened finish is somehow propping open the fibers to let light pass through.
Also, I'm not stuck on MO. I'm just looking to minimize fumes while getting maximum penetration into the wood.
Thanks for reading so much, looking forward to hearing your thoughts!