really colorless wood finish
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Hello :),
Im currently woring on a lamp with woven plane shavings. The Body is made of beech and the shavings are from Elm, cherry, walnut, oak, beech, alder, maple and birch. Part of the beauty is the kontrasts. Now when i apllied oil as a finish i always encountered a yellow coloring and darkening.
My question is if you have any advide on a finish, that works on bright and dark woods, without altering the colors to much. On the pictures you can see the unfinished vs the oild darker lampThanks you for anny suggestions
In “Understanding Wood Finishing” by Bob Flexner, he says that water-based finishes generally give the smallest change to wood colour and don’t leave the yellowish tone to light woods. I haven’t used any personally, but it could be worth trying out.
If you’re trying to avoid the ambering effect of an oil finish, you might consider a water-based finish, something like https://www.rockler.com/general-finishes-high-performance-water-based-top-coat-satin
Hi David, cool idea, weaving from plane shavings. Just a few thoughts about finishing. Plain oils like BLO, oil based varnishes, and oil-varnish blends change colors of wood and can also yellow with age. But water based finishes are often recommended for light wood since they do not change the color much. I would experiment before putting them on a project. I remember Paul using a water based finish somewhere, but I have not had great luck with it. I probably need to experiment more. When I put it on a project it came out sort of glumpy or something. I took it off and tried something else.
A second option might be one of the ultra blond shellacs. You can get flakes from someplace like shellac.net, mix them up with good quality alcohol, and test them out. Even if that turns out to be not quite right, there is no waste since you can use them elsewhere. (Unmixed flakes, in an airtight container, can last a long time, though once mixed, they need to be used in a year or so or they begin to deteriorate.) They add very little color compared, say, to the canned kind of shellac.
Another option for something that is not going to get much wear is just wax. You said this is for a lamp, but I am not clear what part of the lamp your picture shows. I have never just used wax on anything, but I know turners sometimes do.
One other thought. It just occurred to me that your woven plane shavings might be rather flexible. I wonder how flexible they are even though they are in a frame. Most finishes like shellac or varnish are rather brittle. Might those finishes just crack if put on something that flexes even a bit, like a woven mat? If so, that points toward simple wax or some sort of oil (or oil/varnish blend) even though they generally change the color of things. Just a thought.
First of all thank you (and the others 😀 ) The thing wioth the flexibility is actually a bit of a problem. I tried using spray on varnisch, but ist was kind of brittle and felt wierd. The problem with wax i think is the application, since i cannot put pressure oin the shavings 😀 thats why i used oil so far, The Idea with water based finishes i something i havnt looked into yet. Maby there is some flexible easy to applie finish.
Tha lamp is the hole thing. But its with white LEDs so not really warm 🙂Tanks again
Hej,
Probably not a very ideal example, but this is how a cabinet in birch came out after four coatings of a water based finish (the very type linked to by Edmund).
Used the same varnish on our croft’s floors, with no cracks, despite the floors being affected by the seasonal movements of the house.
Minwax water based wipe on polyurethane is perhaps also an alternative.
Sven-Olof Jansson
London, UK; Boston, MAWater based finishes can be colorless, but I think they are generally film forming, so they likely will have the same problem as the spray varnish. If you try, please let us know what happens.
Personally, I like the amber and warmth that came into the work in the left hand, oiled photo. You still have contrast and graded darkening, but it looks like the degree of darkening may not be in the order you wanted. Perhaps what is needed is using the results from the oiled finish piece to decide a new order for the wood and build again?
This may actually be a case in which you ought to apply finish to the material before you build. Would that work? So, apply oil to the shavings, then do your weaving. You’ll then know exactly what the final darkness will be. Most likely, the degree of darkening will depend on more than the species. It will also depend upon the grain orientation, for example. So, even if you order the shavings by species based on this sample, you might get slightly different results from the next. Again, this argues for applying oil to the shavings first. You may be able to apply a first coat to determine the colors, do the rest of the work, and then apply a final coat or two to touch up any scuffing.
Thank you 🙂 you are right, a lot goes into the darkening. Also de orientation of the shaving makes a diffrence since one side has a shine to it whilst the other side doesnt (Thats becaus of graun direction and also the sinde wich gets cut. So there is a lot that goes into it 😀 . I do also like the oil (and the easy of applieing it) so i think ill stick to it but maby trying out an oil that darkens as little as possible.
Thank you for all your Ideas Tho 🙂Regarding orientation, some woods demonstrate chatoyance, which means they look lighter or darker depending upon their orientation. Some of your tiles have some squares dark and some light. If you rotate the piece, you may find that the light squares become dark and vice versa.
I hope you post descriptions of your experiments and results here! I’d like to learn the outcomes.
First of all thank you (and the others 😀 ) The thing wioth the flexibility is actually a bit of a problem. I tried using spray on varnisch, but ist was kind of brittle and felt wierd. The problem with wax i think is the application, since i cannot put pressure oin the shavings 😀 thats why i used oil so far, The Idea with water based finishes i something i havnt looked into yet. Maby there is some flexible easy to applie finish.
Tha lamp is the hole thing. But its with white LEDs so not really warm 🙂Tanks again
You could also try dissolving the wax in e.g. turpentine or mineral spirits (this goes faster with a bit of heat, e.g. in a glass in hot water) and then apply it with a brush. The solvent will evaporate and leave the wax on the wood. And maybe for polishing a soft cloth or one of those polishing mops is soft enough so they don’t break the shavings…?
So I decided to use oil since i liked the warm color. I tried 2 oils and you can see the comparison. (Im still studiing so i cannot afford to by everything and trie it). BVut thank you so much for all your input and ideas. 🙂
I did find soime things interesting tho. (My results arnt really scintific, since thickness of shavings and so on weary)
I used a normal oil bought in a german store called Hornbach wood oil, wich claimes to be colorless however “colorrefreshing” and on the other oine i used 100% linseedoil (brand Nordicare).
The linseedoil (on the right) was mostly brighter however for some woods (cherry and walnut) it was darker.
I think the Hornbach oil has some color on its own, so all the wood kontrasts ended up a little closer together, whilst the linseedoil didnt really channge the coler as much, why i think darker woods stayed darker, whilst brighter Woods stayed brighter.
As a remark, it isnt boild linseed oil, since i wasnt sure if thet would be to flammeble on the shavings.So that are my results. After some time i realiced, that i liked both 🙂
I hope you like my findings and maby you have some comments 🙂
Greetings
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