This is the question most often asked when a woodturner looks at another’s work. Everyone wants to know about “finishing”, and a discussion on finishing is more popular than any other single subject for a demonstration. Yet, finishing is given the least attention in everything that is published about turning wood. All too often the presentation avoids the question altogether with a brief instruction to, “apply your favorite finish.” The beginning woodturner becomes even more confused when they go to The Home Depot, only to find 300-feet of shelf space filled with products that are made to put a “finish” on a piece of wood.
Finishing wood isn’t difficult.
These pages are presented to answer a few of the many questions on finishing, and assist those who do not yet have a “favorite finish.” I have used many different finishing products and techniques in sufficient quantity, and for enough years, that I have developed some knowledge and a lot of opinions on their application and use. I present this information as, “What works for me”. These are my “favorite finishes”. Do I use them all? Yes, depending on the shape of the piece, how it will be used, the wood, my mood at the time, and sometimes it is a matter of which is the closest on the shelf.
Why a Finish?
The “finish” is the final step. Our work isn’t complete until it has a “finish”, and we select the finish to accomplish several things. Their order of importance will change for different woods and uses.
1Protection from the environment of its use
2Durability and resistance to wear
3Gloss
4Color
5Enhancement of the grain
6Stability, its barrier to airborne moisture
7Ease of application
8Repairability
9The wood. Some wood species just looks better with one finish than
another.
Which Finish?
There are many techniques and products to accomplish these ends. Unfortunately, there is no single finish that will give us all of these things in a single product. Anything we choose to use as a finish on the wood will be a compromise between those characteristics we want to accent and those we want to diminish. How well the finishes perform these tasks will be discussed in “Finishing Secret-101”
What A Finish Cannot Do
No matter how long we search or how many products we buy, there are several things that a finish cannot do:
Is turned wood different from furniture?
I am often asked asked whether the discussions of furniture finishes in the woodworking press can be used for turned wood. The answer is “yes” and “no”.
• The finish will not cover our turning mistakes, torn grain, tool marks, or sanding scratches. In fact, the finish will accent them and make them all the more obvious. And, the smoother the wood and the higher the gloss, the more obvious they will become.
• The finish will not stop the natural aging process that makes all wood change color with the passing of time and exposure to air and sunlight. We can slow this natural process with various UV inhibitors, and for a short period of time we will have the illusion that we have stopped it. But, these inhibitors will loose their effectiveness, and over the years the wood will still turn dark. Someone once said, “Concentrate on form, not color or grain, because all wood eventually turns black and the form is all you have left.”
• There is nothing that we can put on a piece of wood that will make it waterproof. We cannot give it the properties of glass, ceramic, or plastic.
• There is no such thing as a quick finish that is durable. “Quick” and “durable” are not mutually inclusive properties for a finish. As an example, shellac can be a very hard and durable finish, but it will take several months for the finish to fully cure and reach its ultimate hardness. On the other hand a shellac based friction polish may be fast, but it will not have the hardness required to make it a durable finish because the waxes it contains may hasten its deterioration over time.
The closest that I can come to meeting the quick and durable finish is the wipe-on application of Deft.
“No”
because wood is wood and the finishing products that we use are the same.
“Yes”
because turned wood IS different from furniture. Furniture surfaces, gunstocks, etc. are flat grain, and any end grain is either confined to the ends where it is less visible or hidden inside of the joints. Turned wood on the other hand, can be almost all end-grain and it is there for all to see. The only flat grain is confined to a band around a high point of piece turned between centers with a “spindle” orientation or in two small areas on opposite sides of a bowl or other “faceplate” turning.
This end-grain requires different techniques for sanding and finishing, and we may find that some finishes don’t behave very well on end-grain. It is a common technique for the furniture folks to limit the penetration (and darkening) of the end-grain areas by sanding to a finer grit than the rest of the wood. While advocating a maximum of 180 or 220 grits on the flat surfaces, they will sand the end-grain to 400-grit.
Recommended Reading
We can learn much about finishing from the popular woodworking press because the techniques for furniture can be adapted to our turnings. Other than the difference of grain noted above, the finishing products are the same.
There are a lot of books on finishing and finishes, but I still think the best available are those by Michael Dresdner and Jeff Jewitt. They are both available from Taunton Press (Fine Woodworking Magazine) or most of the woodworking mail-order catalogs. I have included their ISBN so they can be obtained from other booksellers.
“Great Wood Finishes”
by Jeff Jewitt
ISBN: 1-56158-390-1, PROD# 070521
“The New Wood Finishing Book”
by Michael Dresdner
1-56158-299-9, PROD# 070429
My personal preference is towards the book by Jeff Jewitt. He works as a furniture refinisher and uses and describes finishing techniques and products that are more familiar to the woodturner. Dresdner is an advocate of shellac, and his book excels in its discussion of shellac. Either would be an excellent reference for the woodturner who wants to learn more about the finishing products that we use.
“Fine Woodworking” magazine has had at least one article on some aspect of finishing in almost every issue since early 2000. These articles, by Dresdner, Jewitt, Minick, and others, have covered a wide range of subjects from bees-wax to varnishes and thinners. All would be recommended reading for the woodturner who wants to learn more about finishing.
Links to Recommended Internet Sites
There are several Internet Sites that will provide additional information on several of the finishes that I am describing on these pages. These are listed in no particular order.
1
