Finishing Red Oak Moulding?

[John Buzzurro]

I purchased some red oak moulding that I'd like to finish. My goal is to accent the grain and provide some protection for the wood, without changing the color much. Any suggestions?

thx
john

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I use Minwax Natural Stain and water based Poly when I finish Red Oak. If I were to finish them for me I'd use Oil poly since I prefer the deeper tone, but most want the non-ambering poly.

I have finished many projects over the years this way using Red Oak and it always comes out very nicely.

[Frank Hagan]

I just tried using Target Coatings' water based lacquer, "Oxford Ultima" in a satin finish on red oak and I was very impressed with it. I don't like polyurethanes very much, but I have used them. I much prefer the way my latest project worked out with the process I used. The Oxford Ultima is a spray finish which was easy to apply with my el-cheapo HVLP spray gun. It dries in about 30 minutes, ready for a recoat, and like all true lacquers, each coat you spray on "melts" into the coats on the wood to form a single, thick coat. As far as I can tell, it dries pretty clear.

For red oak, I prefer a slightly darker, "honey oak" finish, so I sand to 100 grit and use BLO (boiled linseed oil). I wipe a thin coat of BLO on rather than flooding it, since it tends to "hide" in the open pores of the wood and seep out later when you aren't looking. After about 30 minutes, I wipe it down again and apply another more liberal application, sprinkle some 4F grade pumice on the BLO, and rub it in with a cloth using a circular motion. The pumice turns translucent, abrades the surface of the oak and forms a kind of slurry that helps remove any scratches from the 100 grit sanding, and helps fill the pores. Then I let it dry overnight, apply another coat of BLO the next day, and let it dry a couple of days. I apply a 1# cut of garnet shellac, then spray with the Oxford Ultima lacquer (I bought it from Jeff Jewitt at http://www.homesteadfinishing.com/htdocs/targetcoatings.htm)

The Oxford Ultima looks like it dries pretty clear. I'm sold on the stuff now, especially since it was so much easier to use than the oil based poly I was using.

[tod evans]

john, i don`t know what equipment you`re working with? but here`s one method; thin sanding sealer 50% and spray one coat, wipe on a glazing stain of your choice immediately removing all that does not penetrate the pores. let dry an appropriate amount of time (depends on glaze) spray several coats of topcoat before sanding then spray a thinned final coat. you should be ready to install with no further sanding...02 tod