Reply To: Finishing a cabinet to protect from moisture
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Depends on how serious you are about keeping the natural color of the wood. If you mean you don’t want paint and want a natural, close-to-the-wood finish, then it’s hard to beat Waterlox Original for that application, some say hard to beat Waterlox Original for just about any woodworking finish application, but I think that’s carrying it a bit far. Wipe on with an old wool sock, brush on, it’s easy to use.
For some reason this site is not letting me insert a link to amazon, but you can search Amazon for “Waterlox Original Sealer/ Finish” and it’s the first result.
A cabinet I just did for the garage, no maple but there are some easily recognizable oak scraps in there. Waterlox is an old, old recipe, the original dates back to 1910, and it’s tung oil based, which seems to be my favorite oil finish…I included a pic of the molding I stuck, check the grain, it really seems to pop nicely.
If by “keep the natural color of the wood” you mean you want the maple to stay as white as possible, then ignore the above advice — you’ll want something water-based, not oil-based. Consider General Finishes water-based poly. Durable and will add almost no color. Let’s see if this site will let me insert a link to Rockler…
http://www.rockler.com/general-finishes-ef-high-performance-polyurethane-top-coat-satin