Finishing end grain

[Kees Heiden]

If there is one thing I absolutely suck at, then it is finishing. Right now I am making some beech tryplanes, and I simply coat it with linseed oil. When that has hardened for a week or so I will coat it with wax.

But I always get very dark surfaces on the endgrain portions. When I look at real planemakers (Steve Voigt, Oldstreet tools, David Weaver etc) then I see a much more even coloring. How do they do that?

[Stewie Simpson]

Why don't you just send a pm to the real planemakers and find out Kees.

Stewie;

[glenn bradley]

I use a lot of exposed end grain on large joinery. I sand to 600 grit versus about 220 on face and edge. You'll have to experiment to see what grits yield the result you are after on your particular material. Maple and beech don't need as fine a grit as something like walnut where I practically burnish the wood before finishing.

[Marty Schlosser]

Glen's provided you the good insight into why end grain often comes out looking darker than the face grain parts of a finished piece. The longer answer is that end grain absorbs more finish than the face grain areas. What Glen achieves by sanding the end grain areas with a much finer grit, is keeping that area from absorbing as much finish as it would otherwise do. Another method is to seal the end grain area with something (usually shellac or sander-sealer finishing products) such that it won't absorb finish to the same degree as the face grain area. My preferred product is Target Coating's UltraSeal-WB Shellac Sealer (http://targetcoatings.com/products/sealers-primers-grainfillers/ultraseal-wb-shellac-sealer/), which can either be brushed or sprayed on.

Whether you go the route of (1) sanding much finer on the end-grain, or (2) sand the same amount and apply something to seal the end grain, or (3) do both, is very much dependant on how it goes for you when you do a test... as that's about the only way you'll know which will work best for you.

Hope this all helps, again, welcome to SMC.

[Sean Hughto]

Um, why do you care about the end grain being darker? It is aesthetically unpleasing to you? On a plane?

That's fine, if that's what you mean, of course, but it had never occurred to me that it was unattractive or something to try to fight. But perhaps I'm weird, as I never saw any problem with cherry being "blotchy" either.

[Prashun Patel]

The easiest way to achieve even color on end grain in any application is to apply a seal coat of thinned (1.5#) shellac to it, then sanding back to smooth.

[Warren Mickley]

I have to agree with Sean. End grain looks different than side grain. For guys who want an even tone, you wonder if they wouldn't be happier with formica or plastic.

[Kees Heiden]

Some very helpfull hints and enough for some experiments. Thanks guys.

[Kees Heiden]

BTW, I don't sand the plane bodies. Planing and scraping only. Maybe I must put more effort in planing the endgrain parts. Espically the throat is a tricky area to reach.

[Pat Barry]

I suppose that if you really didn't want the end grain you could make insets out of face grain for the front and back ends to hide the end grain completely and give it a wrap around grain look like many folks want their boxes to look like.

[Steve Voigt]

Kees, the end grain on my bench planes is definitely darker than the long grain. Maybe the photos lie. ;)
FWIW, after I plane the end grain, I briefly go over the surface with a little 220 grit. As others have mentioned, going to a higher grit, say 320, would lessen absorption and lighten the end grain. If you have an aversion to sanding, you can just stop with the planing.

[Kees Heiden]

Hi Pat, that is really thinking out of the box! But I make the planes in a very traditional style, so that isn't going to work.

Steve, thanks for the update. I think I 'll try that first.

And to all, allthough I like to fret over these kind of things during the build, as soon as the tool has been put in use I don't really care anymore. I will probably hit the snot out of it anyway.