I just completed the woodworking portion of a small box. It is made of koa, with a birds eye maple top. I have never used koa before so I am looking for suggestions for the finish.
If you have any, I’d love to read them.
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Replies
Frank
I will be interested myself in the answers you get. I think koa is the most beautiul wood. I have only made small things with it: small boxes, turned pens and knobs, and some small frames. I did spend much of my last Hawaii vacation looking at koa art, sculpture and oversized and wasteful koa furniture. In my opinion, it looks best with no finish, just sanded to the finest grit you can find, and a coat of wax. Just about every piece I've seen has such a great color and striking figure without the need for stain or grain-popping. Koa just begs to be touched and that minimal finish enhances the feel, especially if there are curves and rounded edges. If there are large flat surfaces and you have to have a gloss film finish then I would consider no stain and a clear lacquer.
Working in Koa myself ( a displaced Hawaiian) I think Koa does need a grain popper. It is a magnificent wood, and deserves to have the most beautiful treatment.
My favorite is oil, to pop the grain, and then Shellac.
However, Martin MacArthur, the foremost Koa working company in Hawaii, use Precat lacquer and rubs it.
Has to be seen to be believed, and, more importantly, touched.
Stef (the Big Kahuna)
Edited 6/3/2009 8:54 pm ET by fatboy2
I am making a simple box, 8 3/8" x 4 3/8" x 4 1/4".
It is a high school graduation gift for my best friends son. His parents gave me the nice piece of koa as a birthday present about 10 years ago. I had been saving it for something special, and this occasion fits the bill.
It expect that I will sand to a very high grit, but I need to choose the finish before I do the final sanding.
Hi Frank
My absolutely favourite wood is Tasmanian Blackwood, which is as nearly identical to Koa as can be. It has amazing chattoyance.
I avoid oiling it since it darkens the wood and obscures the figure (and chattoyance). Instead, for maximum figure, I will use a blond shellac, and follow this with wax.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Thanks Derek
I avoid oiling it since it darkens the wood and obscures the figure (and chattoyance).
Derek is right on the money here. Stay away from oil - it can in some instances kill the figure or deaden it quite a bit.
All this business about "popping the curl" is nonsense if you ask me anyhow. Put a good quality shellac or laquer topcoat and if the wood is figured nicely, there's "no popping necessary"
Lee
Right on Lee ,
For my money I'll put a Lacquer finish on a wood like Koa or Myrtle or figured Maple every time it is beautiful .
The natural color and figure are all that need to show
I like Dura Cat by Rudd a pre cat lac , I think the post cat you use is absolutely the toughest finish I have ever seen .
I think the term " Pop " is like from HTV or some designer types maybe
"Hey Rocky watch me make this Poplar pop"
regards dusty, still building a few boxes
Hey Dusty,
Glad to hear someone sees things the same way I do. I just don't think if the curl is there on the board that you have to "pop" it. I have a pair of saws from Mike Wenz that (according to him) had the most incredible curl. I can't tell because when he applied the oil the curl pretty much disappeared. Can't even tell looking at it now that it was curly.
I'd like to see someone take a nice curly board and mask off 1/2 of it. "Pop" the curl on one half then apply whatever - shellac, laquer, varnish, etc. On the other 1/2 just apply the same shellac, laquer, varnish or whatever.
I'd be surprised to see a noticeable or improved difference.
Lee
I agree that whether or not a grain pattern will "pop" with the application of oil is highly dependent on the individual piece of wood.Most of the curly, birdseye, and burled maple I've used got no benefit from oil. These seem to do better with aniline dyes.But in the case of the piece of koa I had, I tried BLO on a portion of the back side, and it made a big difference. Grain that had looked quite good, was now irredescent -- it "moved" when you changed your viewpoint.
Politics is the antithesis of problem solving.
OK, I'll buy that if you say you tested it first and the oil helped. What I see more often than not is this "mystique" that you must "pop the curl" to get some sort of Holy Grail effect on maple.
If you can see the curl from across the room, then I don't care if you put black paint on it (well, almost) the curl is gonna "pop". If you have to walk around the board several times viewing it from different angles to get a good perspective of the curl, then I say walk away and find some lumber with a little better figure.
Take care,
Lee
I have a pair of saws from Mike Wenz that (according to him) had the most incredible curl. I can't tell because when he applied the oil the curl pretty much disappeared.
Hi Lee ... talking of oil verses shellac .. Koa verses Tasmanian Blackwood .. (and to add, I struggle to imagine Mike treating wood with less than the utmost respect) ..
Here is a Tasmanian Blackwood halfback saw that Mike made for me a few years back. The tote is Tasmanian Blackwood ..
View Image
View Image
Can you tell the difference between Koa and Tassie Blackwood?
I've posted before several boxes that I have made with Tassie Blackwood. However this brace pad shows up the detail better ..
View Image
.. and chattoyance ..
View Image
Regards from Perth
Derek
Hi Derek,
Not sure exactly what you mean in your post but I'll clarify a few things.
First of all, I don't want to come off sounding like I'm slamming Mike, because that's not the case. When I talked to him about wood selection for the handles on my saws, he mentioned he had some curly koa that was (in his words) almost too curly. I said that's me! When they arrived, the figure was less than stellar. When Mike and I spoke again, he relayed the story that the figure had all but disappeared when he applied the oil. I don't think he did anything wrong, just one of those things - you win some, you lose some.
Can I tell the difference between the TBW and Koa? Not really. They are (if I am correct) closely related. The wood on your saw's tote is beautiful. From the pictures, it doesn't appear to be extremely curly, but it does have a lot of figure and interesting things going on. I like it. Mike did show me a piece of TBW he had but the curl was not very pronounced so I passed on it. I did manage to get 2 of the saws I ordered from him with curly eucalyptus totes. WOW! Incredible is all I can say.
Take care,
Lee
Hi Lee
I didn't think you were sounding off at Mike, just reporting what you saw.
On dark woods I find that oil will darken them further, and this obscures the figure. On lighter woods it is sometimes desireable to darken the wood or add a tint for warmth. Oil finishes do not obscure the grain in such cases.
Here is a recent example (and one I posted a short while ago) - a piece of West Australian She-oak (a type of lace wood). The oil gave it a mellower colour, then I finished it in a blond shellac and wax.
View Image
Regards from Perth
Derek
Hi Derek,
I agree - sometimes it is desireable to add a little oil to lighter woods to impart some warmth.
And that she oak is beautiful. Is it brittle like true lacewood - or does the "oak" part add some toughness? I like lacewood but when I have worked with it I found it has a tendency to splinter along the grain sometimes.
Lee
Hi Lee
She-oak is very tough - much interlinked grain. Definitely not splintery.
Actually it is not an "oak" - like many Australian trees, it was given a name by the early English settlers of something they considered similar back home. We have a lot of eucalypts in Oz!
Regards from Perth
Derek
I have a Koa guitar that was sealed with shellac, then nitro lacquer. Looks like a million bucks.
PS, where are you guys getting your Koa? My local supplier has only a few pieces and they're very boring. Can you reveal your source(s)?
The piece that I am using for the box was a gift many years ago.
Attached is photo of the completed project. Ten coats of about 1 lb. shellac, sanded to 1500, and waxed.
I found this to be a remarkable thread.
A few statements by people who HAVE worked Koa, and several who speculate. Those who have, seem to mostly use shellac.
If one has not held Koa, picked up finished koa pieces, worked Koa, know the difference between the various colors of Koa, know the differences between curly, flame, whorled, etc,etc koa, and have a large stock of it down in the basement, and tried many different finishes on it, (Oh, and made a living working it) he should be asking questions, not offering opinions.
Stef
Edited 6/13/2009 2:31 pm ET by fatboy2
"A few statements by people who HAVE worked Koa, and several who speculate. Those who have, seem to mostly use shellac.If one has not held Koa, picked up finished koa pieces, worked Koa, know the difference between the various colors of Koa, know the differences between curly, flame, whorled, etc,etc koa, and have a large stock of it down in the basement, and tried many different finishes on it, (Oh, and made a living working it) he should be asking questions, not offering opinions."
Ha! That's amusing. If there were such a requirement in general, there would be no forum....
Just my .02,,, having worked a LOT with koa. Oil does indeed look good right away, but it will continue to darken as time goes on and will eventually get dark enough to obscure the grain. If you must use oil, stay with tung based, not linseed oil. Koa does not need to be "popped". Monkeypod and mango and other tropicals definitely do but koa has it's own shine.
I am currently using MC Campbell pre cat or their conversion varnish. Poly's work well but are too slow for commercial pace and can cure inconsistently in the tropics. Read the label, Ultra fine sanding leaves no tooth for the finishes and results in bad adhesion. 220 is the max you want to go , but it has to be perfectly sanded at 220. Koa shows everything. The suggestion for ultra find sanding and wax looks great but is inherently non functional. good for display bowls. Do not ever use Deft lacquer. It yellows over koa. A lot of the turners here will burnish the wood with polyurethane right on the lathe. this works very well.
As far as finding koa, It's become quite difficult to get matched , solid wood. the sawyers are working mostly salvage operations, so the trees are never healthy specimens. When you do find good wood, you need to hang on to it. It's getting hard to fill the containers required for mainland wholesaling, and small scale retail is almost impossible to do with the overhead in the islands, hence the high prices. Larger orders need to realize that the whole cow is not made of filet mignon, and projects need to be designed to use the wood as it is available.
Re: clunky furniture, there is some very good work going on in Hawaii, but the best people get so busy that they don't have time for the galleries. You see a lot of wannabe work there. You can look at the Hawaii Forest Industry Association for a look at what goes on here professionally. The Hawaii and Maui Wood Guilds also have annual shows and websites.
Gee, Stef, when has in-depth knowledge and vast experience precluded anyone from expressing opinions on the Internet? ;-)Besides, I suspect the number of professional Koa-binet makers is pretty small.
As a matter of interest, I winter in Los Lunas. Care to get together for a beer and talk about Koa?
Stef
OK, let's everybody bow to the great Kahuna, Stef.
I don't live in Hawaii. I live in Mississippi. We have cows here. So I guess that makes me an expert on bull**** just like you are an expert on koa.
Good day,
Lee
Your post reminds me of a university that had the motto of "Learn by Doing." If what you are doing is wrong then experience just encourages more of the same until corrected. It is much easier and better to learn by not reinventing the wheel but rather from a master who already knows. Experience may or may not always the best teacher, but it is certainly the most expensive. It is much wiser to learn from the experience of others.
If one looks around very long in woodworking generally the best have learned from someone else and expanded on what they learned. James Krenov did, Tage Frid did. Many others have as well.
GB,
I agree completely, and that was exactly the point of my commments-not to set myself up as the expert, but try to prevent those who are beginning from making mistakes based on inexperienced advice.
Hitai, I expect you know Dan DeLuz in Mountain View. A magnificent turner, in my estimation. I spent a day with him a few years ago, and was impressed with his entire operation. In particular I found edifying his treatment of the bowls. He turns them in stages. A rough turning, and then a dunk in dilute lacquer. Then about 6 months of drying. then the final turning, and a series of soaking baths in Mineral Oil. I have several of his koa bowls, which I have had for more than 15 years, and none of them have darkened enough to obscure the grain. I use tung oil, also, and some of my pieces are nearing 15 years, with no appreciable darkening. The fact that I am enamoured of tung oil might cloud my objectivity, though.
BTW, the expression Big Kahuna refers to my size, not my clerical status.
Stef
Edited 6/16/2009 7:33 pm ET by fatboy2
Hey Stef, I think a lot of these opinions are like navels. We all have them. I guess I will state right off, that whatever finishing method that I choose, I like for my first coat to really penetrate, and WET out the fiber of a wood like curly Koa which has a high chatoyancy. And I try to not put any finish which would have a lot of glare to interfere or compete with that coming from within the wood.I think it would be good to make sure that everyone understands what is being said by using very clear definitions when talking about this, because a lot of people just won't get it. For instance: Some may think putting a dark penetrating stain on a light figured wood like fiddleback maple really makes the grain pop. When in reality it could be that it just soaks up more in that part where the grain is turning its end-grain out more, than where it is aligned with the surface. You can see this across the room, but this is not chatoyant. Chatoyancy is best described where the wood has a highly reflective quality, when there is a polarized light source which hits and is reflected out of the wood most when it hits the cell tissue from the side of the cell alignment, somewhat like a pool ball bounces off the rails at a complimentary angle.If the bank angle of the light is hitting into the end-grain, it is absorbed, which looks darker. Note, that above, I mentioned polarized light source. I never show a client a wood like this under fluorescent light, or even near a large window. I like to get under a spot, or distant flood or halogen. Even a large window will kill the effect, especially if it is looking out under a lot of green trees, or a lot of blue sky. Both of these are killers of the warm tones of wood compared to tungsten, which is missing the blue end of the spectrum. But Halogen has more of the full spectrum, or the blue end is in there, which can help bring up some of those purple tones which are there in the freshly cut finished wood.There are a lot of things to consider planning a project like this. How the grain is to be best be presented relative to the light source. It is hard to beat using it flat like on a table top, where the light source is from above. As you walk around it, the light becomes dark and the dark becomes light. If the grain is vertical like cabinet doors, with the light above, it will still look better than a cheap wood stained, but the effect is limited, because as we move sideways, the angle of incident doesn't change that much. But if we are bold and try designing a piece where the grain is horizontal, the effect will be a greater reward if you can pull it off, even if the surface is vertical.I did a 10' long vanity last year using a tight fiddleback sapelle with the grain horizontally, that surprised me. I selected the veneers out in the shop under fluorescent light flat on the bench, and though I had everything aligned perfectly. But when I got out to install, I had to flip two of the drawer fronts over, and re-drill the hinge cups to flip one of four doors. It has been my experience that fiddle-back doesn't show up much on flat of plain-sawn wood as pronounced as it does on rift or QS. Which is to say that the little wiggle of the grain is more side to side than in and out relative to the surface of the cambium layer. What I ran into in the above paragraph was that those reflected qualities changed the effect dramatically when the light was from one side relative to the grain because it was rift cut. The medullary rays would have been up and in on some, and up and out on others, which made them lighter or darker, even though they looked even while flat on the table. After 40 years of woodworking, I love the fact that I can still be surprised by and still can learn something about wood that I didn't know.You guys can go fight among yourselves about putting high shiny finishes on wood, but I can't bring myself to hiding the chatoyancy of a wood like Koa behind the reflective glare of a build-up coat of any finish, which has the same bank angle as the fiber of the wood.
But I don't claim to be in the finishing bidness. I just barely claim to be a woodworker.
That is a brilliant explanation of what goes on.
Interestingly, Martin MacArthur, in Honolulu, shows all their big pieces under Halogen spotlights, in a showroom with North facing windows.The wood is positively fiery, and almost makes you dizzy as you walk around it.
Stef
Edited 6/17/2009 10:48 am ET by fatboy2
Thanks Stef. I love this wood for small thing that can be held and turned in the hands. But my last project that I used it on was 10' long, and bout 7 T X 2'D. Getting the lighting right is very important on projects like this. Keeping it back closer to the face is better than getting the light too far out in front, not so much from the wood perspective, but more to keep the finish glare off of it. About 15 years ago, I did a fireplace surround, and some doors for audio and TV equipment. The interior designer or home owner located the lights too far out into the room, which just ruined the effect by causing a harsh glaring reflection off of the finish. That may have been fine for some projects, but just ruined the effect from my perspective. Since then, I usually take the time to educate the homeowners by clamping a light to a long stick, then standing them in front of the project while I play around with the light from above.
Quickstep
I wasted several days of my Hawaiian vacation trying to find someone who would part with a significant piece of it. I asked a few "artists" and a couple of furniture makers for suppliers, and they all refused to give any information. A couple of calls to yellow-page listed sources resulted in nothing - they either didn't call back, said they had none for sale to hobbyists, or suggested clandestine meetings in parking lots.
What really irritated me was all the junk being sold around Hawaii (a life size dolphin for pete's sake!?) made of koa. A lot of well-made and beautiful furniture, but it takes a lot of koa to make a full-size Queen Anne highboy, and somehow that just doesn't seem right.
Anyway, I get mine through E-bay. Not cheap and no big pieces, but I only use it for special occasions.
>>"PS, where are you guys getting your Koa? "The one piece that I've worked, I bought at one of the traveling woodworking shows. At the time, I lived in NE Ohio, and the Akron area show was held at the fairgrounds in Tallmadge.There were a couple of wood dealers there that had lots of turning blocks, and a few boards of some special stuff. And one had this gorgeous piece hanging on the wall. I was looking through the small stuff, and didn't realize that my girlfriend was haggling over the price of that piece. Wasn't too long after that, that I asked her to marry me.As for current sources -- good luck. The stuff has become quite rare, and very expensive. Pieces like the one I bought for $100 (ten years ago) are now approaching ten times that.
Politics is the antithesis of problem solving.
I just got back from Maui, found a great hardwood store with a good supply of koa, curly, straight grained, etc, and not too expensive. (I had to ship it thought) They seemed to have a good grasp when I was describing what I was looking for. Took me right to a good pallet of it. Here's the place: "HLM" Hardware Lumber Maui, Wailuku Industrial Park, 823 Alua St, Wailuku, Hi 96793 (808)244-0499. (No E-address on the business card) Hope this helps.
Hearne Hardwoods sells koa.
-Steve
I have a coffee table that I made from a piece of Koa. The piece has its natural edges, and is sort-of triangular in shape. It apparently came from the crotch of a tree that also had a burl.
Point being that the curls and quilts exist in mine, probably same as yours.
I used a couple coats of boiled linseed oil first. Then dewaxed blond shellac.
And it's gorgeous. (When I can keep the teenager from spilling stuff on it anyway.)
In my experience, the oil did not darken or "muddy" the curls and quilts -- not even a little bit. It added to the effect of irridescence -- how the grain seems to move as you look from varying viewpoints.
But I would be wary of trying to use BLO in enough multiple coats to have that be the only finish. BLO does have a decidedly amber cast, and using enough coats to build up a finish (7 or 8?) probably would be detrimental.
The first time I bought Koa I paid the same price as Red Oak--$1.35/BF. I built some pieces from it and finished then with an oil finish. The wood I used is dark. Oil finishes tend to bring out the greens, reds, browns, etc. Because an oil finish is amber it makes light colored woods look amber. Clear finishes tend to make light colored woods look good. Oil finishes on maple tend to bring out the greens and browns in the wood and amber the whiter part.
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