Finishing – technique question
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- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by Hugo Notti.
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21 December 2016 at 8:32 pm #143586
I think, it is a matter of taste, design, functionality, added value and economics. I have seen many wardrobes with raw but well planed insides. On invisible faces, the wood is often left completely raw, with sawmarks and unattended defects.
I think, it helps a lot to look at furniture and try to find out, how the maker took his decisions.
Dieter
Good comments so far. For what it’s worth, from the books and sources I have read… Shellac or finishes like Wax which quickly and fully dry and seal the wood should be OK use internally to cabinet/drawers etc, but opinion is divided on whether it’s necessary to do this and whether it really does minimize wood movement. Perhaps that depends on the wood and climate of your locale etc.
That said, there is always a general warning not to use any other types of finish, especially oils, on the inside of cabinetry as these can cause lingering odours and may not ever fully dry/cure due to the limited air flow in enclosed spaces – this is probably one reason (other than time/cost) that some old furniture is not finished on the inside – perhaps they only had oil finishes available to achieve what they wanted the outside to look like.
Personally, I wouldn’t finish things like the bottoms of legs that will be scraped around on carpets etc anyway, but others may. The likely effects of friction are another thing to think about, depending on the finish and intended use of the piece.
22 December 2016 at 7:45 pm #143601Most oil finishes need light for curing, which makes them a bad choice for insides. Traditional oil finishes needed days, weeks or longer to cure. Today, you can get oils with additives, which cure much faster, and they might not even need that much light.
And people did have other finishes available, centuries ago already. But even at that time, they avoided doing jobs, that weren’t necessary. And raw wood isn’t bad at all. Remember Paul Sellers saying “smooth as glass” after planing.
As for warping, when wood is finished and sealed on one side only: A lot of antique furniture would be horribly out of shape, if this were a real problem. Wood is flexible enough to be kept in place in a fixed framework, warping does not nearly have the same strength of swelling – you can crack stones with swelling wood. Even musical instruments built from thin wood, such as accoustic guitars, are often raw on the inside and heavily finished on the outside, so it cannot be that bad. Don’t take my conclusions for granted, check for yourself.
Dieter
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