wanted:clear deep finish for curly maple

[Jonathan Flachman]

I am working on a jewelry box for my niece. The box is made from curly maple and she wants a natural finish. I am looking for the right finish or combination of finishes to get the most depth from the figure. I assume this will likely be a combination of oil and wax. If so, what oil and what wax?

Second question: How do I center and attach false drawer fronts when I can't access the drawer box with the front in place? (That might be a flaw in the design, but can't change it now!)

This has been a tough project because there is not a right angle in the box, everything is intentionally off by 5 degrees. I also am just setting up shop, so I have a 20 year old benchtop table saw with a cheap blade and an even worse fence. I just hope that when it all goes together it fits right.

[Bob Lasley]

Jonathan,

There are a number of ways to finish the maple. I like to use boiled linseed oil, usually thinned with mineral spirits or turpentine to make it wipe on and off easier. This "pops" the grain. Then topcoat with shellac, in this case I would use blonde shellac. Tung oil would also work well for this.

As for the drawer fronts, I quite often put double faced tape on the drawer box, align the front and then press in place against the tape. Pull the drawer and drill and screw from the back.

Good luck,
Bob

[Steve Schoene]

Bob offers good advise. BLO topped with shellac works well.

If you want more intensity in the color, start with a dilute solution of a water mixed dark brown dye stain. Flood on and wipe off quickly. When dry, sand lightly with 220 or 320 grit sandpaper enough to lighten the "hard parts" of the maple where the dye doesn't soak in as deeply. Us a sanding block so you don't sand the softer parts more deeply. Then apply the BLO and follow with shellac after the BLO is dry.

In any event EXPERIMENT ON SCRAP OF THE SAME WOOD before application to your project.

[Jim Izat]

Hey Jonathan,

I'm in the middle of just such a project. I've used full strength BLO wiped on and off, and then Sam Maloof's receipe on top. Looks pretty good so far.

I started off using water based poly and hated it. The finish looked cold. Then I used oil based and still wasn't pleased with how the grain looked so I used the BLO to pop the grain a bit. I used the Maloof recipe to impart a consistant tone to this piece as it is comprised of both mahogany and the curly maple. You'll want to stay a bit brighter overall I would guess.

Jim Izat

[Dave Avery]

Jonathan,

My experience with oils is that they can yellow blonde woods such as maple. If your maple is particularly "creamy" colored, I'd skip the oil and do blonde shellac and wax. If the maple is more brown colored, go ahead and use oil to pop the grain. If I get some time later, I'll post a picture of 2 jewelry bozes I made, one with dark curly maple and one with light figured maple - both are finished with shellac and wax. Dave.

[Lee Schierer]

Here's some curly maple. The gold color is more from teh photo than the wood it actually looks more like the dresser below.

http://home.earthlink.net/~us71na/snaktab1.jpg

or this:


http://home.earthlink.net/~us71na/1dresser.jpg

The finish is pretty simple. Deft-Semi Gloss Clear wood finish. Three coats and you're done. I just saw this tray last weekend and it looks the same even though it was made more than five years ago.

[Jonathan Flachman]

Everyone, thanks for the great input. A couple of questions...


1) Jim, what is Sam Maloof's recipe?

2) Bob/Lee, Would you recommend wax on a BLO/shellac or Deft-semi gloss finish?

2) Bob, the double faced tape and screws had occurred to me, the problem is that the drawer front/back/sides all tilt in at 5 degrees. That makes screwing from the back a challenge, too, since I can't get a driver straight on the screw. (not even +/- 20 degrees the axis of the screw. Any other ideas?

Imagine a drawer that looks like this from the front and from the sides: /__\ The smaller drawers are about 2.5" across at the top and 1" deep. In hindsight, this might make getting small jewelry out of the drawers difficult, but it looks cool.


This has definitely been a learning experience for me.

Here are my lessons so far:

1) Jewelry boxes are twice as hard as full size furniture because the tolerance for error is smaller and the pieces are harder to hold at full-size machinery.

2) Joints on jewelry box-sized drawers are difficult to make pretty. I ended up with a drawer lock joint, but it was hard on the small drawers to get everything square

3) Curly wood is difficult to get to the right thickness due to tearout. Use more straight-grained wood unless you own a drum sander or are good with a hand plane. (I don't even own one, yet)

4) When cutting a series of drawer fronts out of one vertical piece of lumber, cut them a hair too tall and then trim them to size. I tried to hit it nuts-on and came up short with gaps too large between drawers. I had to doctor the carcase to add an additional cross-piece to take up the extra space.

5) Don't promise your niece a jewelry box ever again:(. Build her a dresser instead.

[Todd Burch]

Jonathan,

Get some large pan head screws. You can drill an oversized hole and the pan head will still cover it up. With the oversized hole, you'll get some adjustment out of it. You can certainly start with double faced tape, or hot glue, of course.

Also, before you use your stciky material of choice, get some playing cards to act as shims and dry fit it. Set the drawer front in place and let it rest on the bottom. If you can fit 8 cards at the top, use only 4 at the bottom when you set the face. Same for the sides. Calculate your total gap, then use 1/2 as many on either side.

Finally, don't drive all your screws in until you have one screw hold it EXACTLY where you want it. Then drive all the screws.

Todd.

[Jim Izat]

Hey Jonathan,

Here's a <b><a href="http://www.sammaloof.com/action/chair/55-58.htm"><font color = "green">link</a></b></font> to where Mr. Maloof talks about his recipe.


Slainte,

Jim Izat

[Tim]

Hi Jonathan,

You can also buy the Maloof mix under his name from Rockler (and possibly others). They sell both the oil/urethane blend and the oil/wax blend. I just finished using them on some red oak cabinet doors and love how they came out. Really nice depth with (presumably) a bit more durability than straight oil. I'll be using it again.

[Ted Shrader]

Originally posted by Jim Izat
Hey Jonathan,

Here's a <b><a href="http://www.sammaloof.com/action/chair/55-58.htm"><font color = "green">link</a></b></font> to where Mr. Maloof talks about his recipe.


Slainte,

Jim Izat

Jim -

Thanks for the link. Good info.

Ted

[robertfsmith]

I like using tung oil, toped with deft's gloss laquer. It seem to bring out the curly figure nicely. Here is a picture of a coffee table I made. the center is Hard maple with bark pockets. All around the bark pockets is super small tight curly figure. I didn't notice the firgue as much until after the tung oil was applied.

[robertfsmith]

Here's a close up of the maple figure.

[Bob Lasley]

Jonathan,

I see your problem. I didn't realize the drawers were so small. About the only thing I see you can do easily is do the double face tape thing, then pull the drawers out and mark the back of the front around the box. Remove front and tape, then glue on. Someone else may have a better idea.

As far as the BLO/shellac, I don't put anything over the shellac, though I may use 6-8 coats of shellac. Wax over it would be fine. You can also use the Deft on top of a coat of shellac or right over the BLO. Either way, let the BLO cure a couple of days before putting anything over it. When the smells gone, its cured enough to topcoat.

Good luck,
Bob