18th century curly maple mirror

[lou sansone]

good morning fellow WW's
here is a little 18th century mirror I just finished. I made 3 for gifts. pretty easy and only take a few hours each

enjoy

lou

[Warren White]

Lou,
That is really nice! I love the figure in curly maple. What did you use to finish it and get that particular color?

I won't comment on the time it took; it takes me longer than that just to get ready to think about doing something. :(

Warren

[Jason Tuinstra]

Lou, very nice. I love the "pop" you got out of your curly maple!

[Keith Hooks]

Wow, Lou. That's some gorgeous wood. That seems like the perfect project for showing it off. You're going to have some very grateful recipients.

[Rob Russell]

Gorgeous work lou!

[Keith Burns]

I have to agree with the others, that is some great looking wood and a fine looking mirror. Nice job.

"I'm tired of being arm candy for my wife"

[Dev Emch]

Lou...

Very nice work.

[Richard Wolf]

Love the mirrors. I have had that on my to do list for a long time. The classic style just begs for curly or tiger maple.

Richard

[Ray Petri]

Great job. Really love the curly maple. Where do you get your maple? I have finished some curly maple per your suggestions and really looked great.

[lou sansone]

hi all

glad you liked the mirror. the picture is pretty poor, but you all get the idea. These are nice little diversions from bigger projects. I highly recommend them. As far as the finish is concerned warren, search on my name and I think you will find the method that I use. I guess ray had used it and he seems to like it. This maple is soft maple from upstate NY. I had bought about 6000 lbs of it a while back so it will take me some time to use it up. I have some nice stuff from PA as well that I have built furniture from. I have also bought saw logs from PA that were not very good when all was said and done. I think a more experienced sawyer would have known better, but I am still learning. Some of the lower grade curly maple I may sell in the future. most of it is 12/4 and some is 20" wide.

lou

[Jim Becker]

Wee bit 'o tiger curl, there Mr. Lou!! Nice...

[Corey Hallagan]

Nice Lou, those look great. Kind of reminds me of one of "Norms" projects he did. What did you cut the curvey parts with? Again, nice work,

Corey

[Steve Roxberg]

Awesome work, the finish is the best part. Very impressive

Steve

[Jim Hinze]

Wonderful... Love the figure and design. I'll send you my shipping address :D

[Steve Inniss]

Lou,
Excellent ...beautiful. -Steve

[Martin Shupe]

Hey Lou,

I am on the hunt for your finish recipe...

I didn't find it in this thread. Can you give me a hint?

[Jim W. White]

Lou,

Your work in this curly maple is really very striking. I'm sure the people that are on your gift lists consider themselves very blessed indeed!

...Jim in Idaho

[lou sansone]

Lou,

Your work in this curly maple is really very striking. I'm sure the people that are on your gift lists consider themselves very blessed indeed!

...Jim in Idaho

thanks for the complement. Many of the folks I make things for do really like it, but actually I have found that I get the blessing by being able to give to others.

lou

[lou sansone]

Hey Lou,

I am on the hunt for your finish recipe...

I didn't find it in this thread. Can you give me a hint?

here it is


here is what I have found to work for curly maple, after lots of experimentation - You have to have decent maple or else the rest is not worth a hill of beans.

I call this my "double dye process" I am not sure that I have ever seen anyone else use this exact method, but for all I know every one does but will not tell anyone how they do it.

1. sand to 220 grit
2. use a water base aniline dye - I use a mixture of honey amber maple and pilgram maple. mix to suit your taste. I think darker is better than lighter on the color. I make my dye the strength of very very strong tea. I always wear rubber gloves because it will stain your fingers brown.
3. brush on the dye. lots of it. rub it into the wood with a rag.
4. let it dry overnight
5. sand to get rid of the raised grain. Do not sand off the dye. Some folks do that, but I do not. I also do not play games with using different color dyes and sanding them back. If you have decent wood and the right base color the wood will do the work and not the chemistry lab.
6. brush on the dye again- same strength or possibly a little weaker or stronger depending on the first try
7. let it dry overnight
8. coat the whole piece with BLO thinned with turps or mineral spirits- soak it on and if you want you can use a sanding sponge and make gravy with the dust and BLO. Be carefull here - use super fine sponges
9. wipe off the excess
10. let it dry a few days
11. put 1 or 2 coats of orange or garnet shellac 1/2 lb cut on with a brush and sand between coats carefully - this is where you can ruin the piece by sanding through the dye
12. top coat with what ever you like - tung oil, poly soup mixture, more shellac- but use super blond , nitro lacquer, ....
13 put a few coats on of the top coat until you like the build
14. let the finish set a week
15. rub it out with 0000 steel wool and wax or what ever else you like to rub stuff out with
16. make a nice pot of coffee and sit and look at your piece for a while - think nice thoughts and all of that rot.
17. post a picture for us to look at on SMC<!-- / message -->