For finishing cherry I have been following the suggestions in Jeff’s finishing book. I am pleased with the results for the most part, but with the quantity of step, it is quite time consuming. Part of the recommendation is to wash with water to raise the grain plus sanding and then this is followed by a thinned down amber aniline dye wash prior to the shellac washcoat. Everything after this is pretty straight forward, but the need for the first two steps is unclear to me. The pieces I am finishing are house cabinets and not fine furniture. I know I can simply try and compare results, but I sure would appreciate an explanation behind this.
Thanks.
Replies
You're asking specifically about the dampening to raise the grain and then sanding?
Most wood shaping operations (planing, sanding, etc.) leave the fibers in the surface of the wood in a sort of "compressed" state. Once the wood has been compressed in this way, any subsequent operation that applies water (or, to a lesser extent, alcohol) to the wood will cause those same fibers to expand, leaving the surface rough. The idea of raising the grain and then sanding (lightly!) is to eliminate this roughness. You first wet the wood to cause those fibers to expand, and then you sand them off. You have to be careful to avoid sanding so heavily that you go past those fibers into "fresh" wood, or you'll compress that layer of wood, too, and you'll have to start all over again.
If you're only going to apply oil-based finishes, you don't need to perform these steps, because oils won't raise the grain. But if you're going to apply an alcohol- or water-based finish (such as the aniline dye or the shellac) then doing them saves you from having to sand so much later in the process that you risk sanding right through the finish that you just applied.
-Steve
That makes sense and I suspect my light sandings have been excessive. After raising the grain with water should the sanding be to a 180 - 220grit smoothness? What would be the purpose of the diluted amber aniline dye prior to washcoating with shellac? The dye dilution suggested seems to be almost equivalent to the grain raising with water.
After the washcoat I apply an oil based stain and finish with poly rub.
"After raising the grain with water should the sanding be to a 180 - 220grit smoothness?"
Yes. I usually hand-sand to 220, raise the grain, and then sand again with 220. With harder woods (e.g., maple), I follow that by sanding lightly to 320. During that second 220 sanding, each surface typically gets no more than one or two back-and-forth "round trip" strokes. With the sandpaper mounted on a resilient (rubber) sanding block, I go very slowly and feel the surface with my fingers after each stroke, and stop as soon as I've removed the fibers.
"What would be the purpose of the diluted amber aniline dye prior to washcoating with shellac?"
I'm not familiar with the details of the specific recipe that you're following, but the basic idea is this: Because cherry is blotch-prone, you need to seal it before applying the bulk of any coloring agent, or else you risk getting blotches. That's what the shellac is for; it seals the surface and prevents significant absorption of the pigment stain. However, if you don't apply any color before sealing with shellac, then all of the color just sits on the surface, which looks kind of unnatural. Adding just a little bit of color before sealing gives more depth to the final appearance.
-Steve
Ahh, so you suggest one must pay attention when sanding, whats the deal (ha!ha!). Jeff does mention that the aniline dye is an additional step that he likes that many do not do. The finishing process seems to take as much or more time as it does to build.
I totally get the shellac washcoat, I tried some time ago without and really did not enjoy re-sanding. Still working on getting better with the glazing aspect. It seems there is as much learning with the finishing as there is with the building.
Thanks for taking the time to help. I think I need to pay closer attention when sanding.
"...so you suggest one must pay attention when sanding..."
Yes, well, there you have it. The secret is out. So much for our fantasies.
"The finishing process seems to take as much or more time as it does to build."
Indeed. Some people actually enjoy finishing, if you can believe that. I despise sanding so much that I try to do everything I can to get out of it, which means keeping the jointer and planer blades razor sharp, using hand planes and cabinet scrapers as much as possible, etc.
-Steve
I cant imagine ever enjoying the finishing. Way too much waiting. Biggest benefit of shellac is speed. Thats great stuff, just doesnt work everywhere as I learned.
I don't like to sand (who does). But I do enjoy finishing. It is very rewarding to watch the wood come to life. I also like trying out new finishing techniques and materials.
Rob
My biggest problem is I never think the end result is quite as good as what I see in pics of others work. Frustrating, and time consuming. My last project I went too hard when scuff sanding before the final finish coat and ended up with a few light spots. I just about came unglued. At one time, I thought I needed to take a course in joinery, but now I think a finishing course would be of more value. I never thought too much of finishing until opening Jeff Jewitts book. After leafing through and reading what I needed I realized how much more involved it was.
I think a lot of people enjoy the woodworking part and fear the finishing part because they don't take the time to learn to do finishing. I'm not saying anything about you personally, just making a general observation. It seems that many will spend years and thousands of dollars working on their woodworking skills and when they complete a project they want to rush through the finish and are frustrated because they think there should be a do it all finish that can be slopped on carelessly and still achieve perfect results.
In addition to Jeff Jewitt's book I highly recommend "Understanding Wood Finishing" by Bob Flexner. His book dispels many of the myths and outright lies (perpetuated by the manufacturers) that surround finishing. I have never understood why finish manufacturers try to keep the consumer in the dark and portray finishing as something akin to alchemy. One would think that they would want their customers to know how best to use their products. Unfortunately that would require that the customer know what ingredients are in the finish they are using, and if that were to happen they could no longer sell boiled linseed oil and varnish mixed together, for twice the price you could make your own, simply by calling it something with tung oil in the name, never mind if there is any tung oil in the can.
Rob
I think that issue with Finishing is lack of practice. If you build a large project you can do a bunch of dovetails, a good number of M&T joints, some rabbits, some dados, and a lot of cross cuts and rips, but you will only do ONE finish on it. So we practice woodworking more then wood finishing because of the scale of the projects. Maybe we need to build a bunch of little things. Then we will do more finishing relative to the amount of wood working we do, and maybe get better at it.
Doug
ALL,
Simple solution: send all your unfinished pieces to me and I'll finish them!
And, you might get them back...................
:-)
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
You may be in for a rash of work!!
I love a great looking finish but hate the fact that it can take longer to finish a project properly than it does to build it!
Oh well! Shipping it to you and back would really be a pain. I'll just have to put up with the finishing myself. JJ
Yes, but think of all the nice pieces I would have!
There was a discussion some time back called I hate to Finish, and I responded that I love to finish. You mention all the work getting a piece ready, then it oftimes takes as long to finish it.
I guess we need to consider the time for both phases of a project. When I think about it, the finishing phase is your opportunity to really make that fine woodworking really shine! As many others have expressed in so many words, the finish makes or breaks the piece.
I relish the chance to put a fine finish on my pieces and have gotten some great advise from the folks who habit the Finishing discussions. Wealth of knowledge in there for just about anything you might want to know.
Cheers to everyone, and have safe and great holiday,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Few more Q's after doing some testing last night and this am. I did up a finish test piece for the current vanity project last night carefully sanding as you described, applied the washcoat of shellac and applied an oil based stain. The last vanity I built I attempted to lay a thin coat of stain atop the washcoat, but I found that the stain coat was not very uniform and it ended up way to dark for my liking (see attached). This time I thought it better to sneak up on the color with multiple stain coats, but I got to wondering how much, if any the stain soaks into the washcoat? When I tried an additional stain coat this am it did not seem to darken much?
With this current project I am using splines to connect rails/stiles... and these are only to have a finish coat. I decided to pre-finish the parts, and assemble before the finish coat. I got to wondering how I should deal with glue squeeze out with this method? All the joints will need to be taped prior to staining so I suppose I could apply the finish coat of poly too to avoid glue probs. Which would you suggest?
I should first mention that I'm not the best person to ask regarding the fine details of staining, as I just don't use stains very much.
I don't believe the stain will penetrate the shellac to any measurable extent at all. However, a sanded surface is never perfectly flat, so the stain does get caught in the little nooks and crannies, which may make it seem like it has penetrated the finish. In principle, with some solvent, a good cloth (like a 3M micro-fiber cloth), and a little rubbing, you should be able to completely remove the stain from the shellac.
With multiple coats of stain, you pretty quickly reach a point of diminishing returns. If it's not as dark as you want after two coats, you probably need to make the stain itself darker.
I like to prefinish whenever I can. It's just so much easier that way. But you can't prefinish everything. (A dovetailed corner would be pretty much impossible, for example.) Any place where two surfaces need to end up flush, such as a rail and stile in a raised-panel door, are going to be very tricky to prefinish, because you really need to have the ability to clean up any discrepancies after assembly.
When you do prefinish, you obviously have to be especially concerned about glue squeeze-out. The first thing is "be careful." Since that doesn't always work, I've started using some stuff called Waxilit as a glue resist. You just paint it on the parts where you don't want glue to stick. I don't yet have enough experience with it to give it a thumbs up or down, but it looks promising. Michael Fortune recommends it, so that's a good sign. The standard method of removing it after assembly, however, is to use methanol, which would destroy a shellac finish. It looks like naphtha or paint thinner would work, too, although those have the potential to harm other kinds of finishes.... Experimentation is in order.
-Steve
By Jeff I assume you mean Jeff Jewitt. You can access him directly at the forum on his site: http://www.homesteadfinishing.com
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