Hi Guys,
I’m generally on the Threads forums, I asked this question over in knots and got no replies – figured maybe cabinetry wasn’t their thing, so came over here.
Ok, so I just scored big-time at the Springer Lumber going out of business sale – bought literally a ton of Big-leaf maple, spalted, quilted, birdseye, ribbon, you name it, they had it. And I had the horse trailer to haul it off in…. A lot of it was in book matched sets, and we plan to have it made up into cabinets for the current remodeling project. Some of the spalted stuff is just wild – psychedelic sixties flashback stuff, but some of it is quite spongy, and it will need to be massively stabilized before working. Also, I know that some of the quilted stuff will be a pain in the rear to sand. My cabinet maker is pretty good, but he is used to working with “normal” wood. Stuff he buys from the standard lumber stores, with some of the more plebian exotics, like brazilian cherry. I’m afraid that he won’t know how to handle this wildly figured wood, and I don’t want him throwing up his hands and chucking the lot into the firepit. So, obviously we aren’t going to be putting 5 foot long pieces into a vacuum chamber, but he does have a spray shop. What should we use as a stabilizer that won’t darken and yellow the wood, I would like to keep it as light (white) as possible.
Replies
Kilroy
I work with highly figured wood all the time.. all that's really needed is carefull attention to sharp, really sharp cutting edges.. that plus light passes..
Two issues you will have with spalted wood. First it can make you sick! Nasty flue like symptoms.
Wear a mask whenever working with it.. and vacum up all the dust like a religon. You cannot be too carefull. Wash your work clothes every night in really hot water with a lot of strong detergent.. Don't wash them with normal clothes!
I cannot stress enough how nasty working with spalted wood can be.. Yes it's beautiful and exciting, but great care must be used untill it has a coat of shellac.
Second you will find punky wood wherever you have spalted wood. Soak the punky wood with the thin isocyanurate and let it harden overnight.. it should then work like ordinary wood..
When working with wildly figured wood don't sand to finish! You'll never get the real beauty out of the wood that way.. You must use scrapers! Scraping wood is a fine art. Beyond mere technique, however when finished the care and work involved cannot be dupilcated by anything else..
Consider using shellac instead of polyurethane.. the beauty of a shellaced finish is second to none without the look of plastic you will find on polyurthane finishes.. Fine wood working has used shellac for centuries to obtain the very best and most durable finish..
Shellac comes in a variety of colors.. all the way from clear throu amber and garnet. Do not assume that you want clear.. you can do some marvilous things with the various colors which shellac comes in..
Shellac is really the wonder finish.. first it's safe, you've been eating it for all of your life on candy and pills. it's natural biodegradeable and a renewable resource..
Second shellac can be marvilously easy to work with and it's the only finish that should it get scratched or damaged you can repair without any sanding and still have an invisable finish..
Fine antiques are all finished in shellac, in part because fo the depth of shine and quality of shine but also because it's durable and repairable.
Nothing exceeds the look of french polished shellac.. Nothing!
Good lord! We said the same thing.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_oEx4-Mc4
The world of people goes up and
down and people go up and down with
their world; warriors have no business
following the ups and downs of their
fellow men.
Is this anything like the supper collider generating a blackhole that will swallow up the world?.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Well, I gotta admit, he was dead on correct in his post. For years I worked with nothing but exotic woods and AAA Maple. It is hard to get a flawless finish such as a guitar requires.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_oEx4-Mc4
The world of people goes up and
down and people go up and down with
their world; warriors have no business
following the ups and downs of their
fellow men.
"Is this anything like the supper collider generating a blackhole that will swallow up the world?"In my experience, whether a black hole is generated or not, usually depends on what is for supper. Not just the fact that you are colliding it...
View Image
Click here for access to the Woodshed Tavern
View ImageEvery guitar has a black hole ....
Sphere,
eeck! The end of the world <grin>
actually I think you and I are reasonably similar in our approach to wood working.. I suspect you are far more careful and in all likelyhood a much better wood worker than I am. With far greater skills and experiance..
I come from the get-er done school of wood working.. self taught and probaly do things in a way you'd shake your head over.. The fact that they work is more of a testamony to the the flexibility of wood than any formal training required..
Awwe shucks.
Me having good teachers only sped up what I would have learned your self taught way..we both get the job done in own ways.
I remember our painter/finisher going stark raving mad trying to get the Quilted Maple guitar top for a famous player ( Joe Satriani) just the right shade of purple..yes purple..it kept getting blotches of tans and greenish browns, I think we made 5 guitars before he got it right, but then could nail it everytime after.
Aniline dyes and vinyl sealer the rest he kept secret..LOLSpheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_oEx4-Mc4
The world of people goes up and
down and people go up and down with
their world; warriors have no business
following the ups and downs of their
fellow men.
Thank you gentlemen!
Those are really helpful posts!
I have a couple of more questions...
Can you put shellac over cyanoacrylate? Will it age well with the shellac layered over cyanoacrylate? Will the shellac hold up if used for a bathroom cabinet in a master bath where no children or pets will be dousing it with water?
I'm guessing that scraping is done by hand? Rather like planing, but with the blade pulling across the wood, rather than peeling it up like a planer? I am concerned about this, because the cabinet maker that we are working with seems like a power tool kind of a guy, I'm not sure he will be amused by the idea of that much hand work...
Thank you,
Barbara
Barbara,
Yes! shellac can be applied over nearly anything..
In high moisture areas shellac isn't a good finish.. Use clear lacquer instead. Frankly you really shouldn't use highly figured or spalted wood in the bathroom at all. Spalted wood is just rotted wood and the moisture will get in and increase the rotting. Turn a very good looking piece of wood into an ugly mess. Highly figured wood too can absorb moisture easier than solid wood will..
Yes scraping is done by hand and those without the skill have a learning curve.. The really tough part is teaching people to sharpen and keep sharp their scrapers. Using them is somewhat self evident in once done correctly the idea is grasped quickly. With wildly figured wood the learning curve becomes steeper.
IF he's a machine tool guy he will either love this as a different (and much quieter) experience where he can really feel the artistry of working with wood or quickly get frustrated and disenchanted with the whole idea and just sand away leaving you with a miserable approximation of the real beauty of the wood..
Please understand what you have is a quantum leap beyond the ordinary.. to treat it as ordinary will be as ethically wrong as gluttony. However you cannot expect to get craftsman work when you are only prepared to pay tradesman prices.. So either be prepared to accept the added time (and cost) or be willing to accept an inferior result..
An Original Rembrandt costs more than a print does..
I've just reread that post and I recognize that it comes accross as rather preachy.. I do hope you will forgive me for that. Accept instead the thoughts rather than the tactless way I had in saying them.
Thanks Frenchy,
I knew about the fungus in the spalted wood, so I was planning that for the other areas rather than the bathroom. I had not known that about the figured wood, which poses a bit of a dilemma, since that is what hubby has his heart set on for the bath vanity now... Although at our house really it's a moot point - we are always high humidity all the time - we live in the Seattle area convergence zone! ;-}So I actually think I could get into the Zen of scraping the wood myself - what would you recommend as the best scraper for a novice to start with? I have Home Depot, Lowe's, and a couple of really good independent hardware stores in a short drive, and I could go into town to get to the Rockler store on the weekend. (Yes, I am certified for wearing a respirator, and I have stall-cleaning clothes that can be boiled if necessary to get the fungus dead.) And regarding the post saying that all guitars have a black hole??? Those black holes differ on one very important point - some suck all the sound in - and some let all the sound out - and that is the art of the luthier!
Kilroy
The brand of scraper is moot.. I bought mine from Lie-Nielsen at the same time I bought my hand planes from them..
But the real art is in the sharpening of the scraper.. make sure you get the equipment to do that.. learn how as well.
Oh and if you use a scrapper? you won't need to worry about the respirator or zoot suit as much.. just a wood working apron will protect..
Almost no dust with scrapping.. (well none flying around if you are doing it properly).
As to the use of highly figured wood in your bathroom? It really depends. I have a lot of burls which as you know are very open grained wood and will easily absorb water.. However In my guest bathroom and several other rooms in the house I have or will have a lot of fiddleback maple which is a very tightly closed grained wood..
My guest bathroom has a shellacked finish and it's been up now over three years without any sign of deterioration.. However it doesn't have a shower and the sink is small French Cistern made of porcelain thus there is no splash onto the walls.
Under similar conditions you could use shellac.
Back to your highly figured wood.. laquaer is most likely your best finish and don't worry too much if the grain is closed. Do be carefull to seal all the sides and not just the face though.. if you have burls and other open grained wood which can't be sealed put that wood in places where it won't be exposed to water long term..
As for humidity. I live on a lake actaully I'm near the end of a pennsula so I have water on three sides of my house.. shellac works fine under those conditions.. it's the steady wet down you'd get from the use of a shower constantly fogging things up. (if you prefer cold shower then disregard) <grin>
I wouldn't use shellac in a kitchen, bath, or anywhere where water or alcohol may come in contact with it. Especially horizontal surfaces. Unless you want to be refinishing portions regularly. Heat too.
You could use nitro lacquer to give the maple a nice warm glow, but it has moisture and is subseptable to other chemicals.
A good water-clear WB lacquer or cat lacquer over a wash to bring the figure out would be my advice.
Tom
Do warn her about the effects of spraying catilized lacquer though. Warn her as well the need to follow the directions exactly.
I figured her cabinetmaker would do the finish.
Don't think he'll enjoy scraping the figured wood though....
I agree Tom from her description he's a power tools, get-er-done kind of guy and that's fine except for highly figured wood like she's working with
So, I looked at hand scrapers in a couple of places on the net. The Lie-Neilson cabinet maker's one looks gorgeous, but at $215 for a probable one time use, seems a bit pricey. The bow types are less expensive, but look like they would have a longer learning curve. The card ones seem really cheap comparatively, and seem easy to use, but one would need to count one's fingers afterwards....
Hubby inherited a hand plane that looks like it is a number 4, 9 1/2" long with 2 inch wide blade. We would need to get the rust off it, and replace the blade, but could I put the blade in wrong side up, and draw instead of push to use it as a scraper?
Kilroy
Short answer on a hand plane? no! I have a LN 85 scraper which is at the correct angle for scraping and I seldom use it. Hand scraping with a card is easier, faster, and nicer.
Those card scrapers are what I learned how to hand scrape with. Like I said the real trick to scrapping is the sharpening technique
If you go after wood with a dull one it is so frustrating and the results will be so lousy you'll wonder what on earth I was talking about..
If however you go after that same piece of wood with a scraper that's properly sharpened and see the tiny little slices curling off the wood with the gorgeous surface left behind you'll understand complelty what I mean.
Let me see if I can get you started. This is sort of a hands on thing rather than something that you read about and then do but I'll try.. (if anyone can explain things better please jump in)
Since you will be using a scraper on flat surfaces all you need is a flat card scraper.. the ones from Lie-Nielsen are made with a better grade of steel and hold an edge longer than the ones you buy at wood working stores like Rocklers etc.. that's the only differance, they both work the same.
What you need to do is get the card perfectly flat. I do the scary sharp method (sand paper on glass, please ask if you aren't familar with it)
It's fast and most important cheap..
Once I have the edge perfect I use the burnishing tool to roll the cutting edge over to the angle I like to scrap at.. (make sure to roll both sides so when one side is dull you flip the card over and use the other side)
Hmmm that was about as clear as mud..
OK the card is a piece of rectangular steel you only flatten the bottom of one side (usually the long side) then you burnish both corners of that flattened bottom?!?!
Gee it would be so simple if you were here..
When I do mine I always clamp my card in a vice so with my burnishing The card doesn't wiggle around and cause problems..
Oh you know, I failed to mention that it's important to get the planning done before the scraping.. Another words flat to start with. What scraping does is remove the fuzzy little fibers which mottle the beauty of the wood. It's tempting to just go ahead and sand with finer and finer sand paper untill it's reasonably smooth but if you've ever seen a hand scraped piece of wood compared to a sanded piece of wood you'll understand what all the fuss is about..
Like I said you're a quantum leap over ordinary wood it would be a real crime to avoid the last step that makes all the differance..
I'm lazy so I run mine thru my planner (20 inch wide) I can run it thru my drum sander and handle up to 36 inch wide. If you do that you must ensure that they start with freshly sharpened blades.. Not yesterday,, or the day before. fresh, new!
Unfortunately some shops sharpen their own blades I've never seen it done as well as it should be..
Let me explain. I bought $500.00 worth of sharpening equipment so I could sharpen my own blades. I had all the jigs etc and yes I knew who to do it..
I don't sharpen my own anymore the equipment isn't used. Instead I take my blades to a printers service company* and they sharpen them for me.. ( and charge me $12.00 to do so which I gladly pay {remember I'm really really cheap}) To do that I have to have several sets of blades so I have some at home and some at the sharpening service.. a set of blades is $80 So to have my blades professionally sharpened I had to stop using equipment I paid $500.00 for, buy $640 worth of blades and pay money to do what I could do myself (not to mention the time spent driving there and back)
Have I mentioned just how cheap I am?
Sharp is that important!
Hopefully now you begin to understand how critcal sharp is when working with highly figured wood.
* printers service companies sharpen blades for the printing industry. when doing printing they have to scrape ink off to extremely exact tolerances or the printing gets all blurry and smeared.
Thus printers are hyper critical about keeping their scrapers sharp.. Those scrappers look exactly like the cutting blades on a planner and work with exactly the same angles..
They are used to quick turn arounds and to supurb work for a modest charge..
Oops! No they don't sharpen hand scrappers.
Edited 10/3/2008 11:53 am ET by frenchy
Thats quite an expanse in a cabinet, but in guitar building ( where we use a LOT of wild maple) I saturate the punky areas with superglue.
Any good vinyl sanding sealer will work well fot what you have in mind. Even Sealcoat (clear shellac) will suffice, but ANYTHING will amber it up some, just getting it wet with water,thinner, acetone will change the color. I wet all work with any of the above to get an idea what the finished color might be and to see the chatoyance that may be distracting to a nice grain read.
Quilt maple actually wants a tobbacco or amber wash coat to enhance the quilt, and that holds true for Fiddle back or Tiger Maple..you want to cause some contrast to really see the pattern. Plain old strong coffee or tea works in a pinch. After that grain is raised don't sand it TOO much or you go beyond the color you induced.
And finally, I always scrape a lot more than abrade those woods..by wetting slightly, and a really well tuned scraper, glass smooth is possible, sanding scratches just muddy the final look.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_oEx4-Mc4