Replies

1. 
   _Patrick_ | Oct 13, 2020 08:40pm | #1

   Woodworkers do not make good clients. Clients pay the bills, clients like shiny.
   On a personal point of view, just because one can doesn't mean one should…
   Less is more. I like wood, not mirrors.

2. 
   john_c2 | Oct 14, 2020 01:36am | #2

   I like shiny. But to me, the real difference is the thickness of the build. French polish is shiny and very thin. A poured epoxy bar top finish has about the same sheen, but is super thick. Other finishes are in between, depending on how many coats are applied.

   The "plastic" look that I dislike is from excessive build. In something like mahogany or walnut, I like to see evidence of pores still, rather than an unbroken surface.

   That's my personal preference. De gustibus non est disputandum.

3. 
   rob_ss | Oct 14, 2020 02:29am | #3

   I'm with John_C2 here. Second all said.
   I do like a shiny finish, but a matte one is way easier to produce!

4. 
   john_c2 | Oct 14, 2020 03:11am | #4

   Wax is always a good bet to add shine without adding build. And 0000 steel wool is great for knocking back some shine.

   Odd. I find doing a really good matte finish to be more finicky.

5. 
   lat_axe | Oct 14, 2020 03:41am | #5

   Yes, it's a matter of taste.

   But personally I like to dig a bit deeper. I don't subscribe to the notion that we humans make wholly rational free choices out of nothing but our own well-considered feelings and reasonings. We are .... influenced.

   This applies to me and you and everyone. Yet it can be at least interesting to dig at one's current tastes and preferences to try and discover why or how they are what they are. (Sometimes it can be transformative). One's preferences can often boil down to an association with some primitive past pleasure or pain associated with the "thing I prefer".

   In the modern world, it can often boil down to many other influences, particularly advertising or other dominant cultural fashions. We are often told what to like ... then do so. "My" taste is actually that of some purveyor of this or that who got the Svengali people to pry and tinker at our psyches until we come to want their products.

   Super shiny surfaces also seem to have something of the glamourous in them. The oldest meaning of glamour is "under a magic spell" - one in which normal reasoning is shoved aside to be replaced by an obsessive-compulsive attraction to, and desire for, something appealing to a basic human desire for ultimate beauty, pleasure or perfection.

   Glamours often go poof! And there is reality once more revealed in all of it's nasty & nice aspect. In glossy or plasticised furniture glamours, one scratch ruins the whole glamour. In a kitchen table scrubbed regularly with water & a brush, a different kind of beauty emerges that is rather more resilient, both to scratches and human disappointments. No perfection needed or required. Reality will do.

   Lataxe

6. 
   mikaol | Oct 14, 2020 11:04am | #6

   na tianao izany na tsy tianao, John

7. 
   mikaol | Oct 14, 2020 11:07am | #7

   Lataxe, I prefer to finish only with oils but the customer gets what he wants.

8. 
   _mj_ | Oct 14, 2020 02:57pm | #8

   I think a "piano" finish is mostly done to hide the wood underneath, while most of the folks here are celebrating it. A piano is a large collection of boards normally from a factory where visual board selection and grain matching is not a high priority. The legs are probably built up as well, resulting in a not-so-nice thing for a clear finish.

   Upright pianos also have a "piano" finish, but more often have cabinets built of grain-matched parts like furniture and are far more common in their naked wooden state.

   We see a TON of tables with nice tops on painted legs & skirts. That's where the not-so-pretty wood lives.

9. 
   geedubbee | Oct 14, 2020 05:32pm | #9

   The customer is always right. Customers like shiny. Customers like rustic. Customers like pallet wood art. Customers like Crate and barrel.

   Customers pay the bills, they are always right :-)

   Personally I find a high-quality mirror finish attractive. It just has nothing to do with my own style. High gloss is not a bad thing.

   Plasticky looking, ripple-ridden, foggy high gloss like a rattle can polyurethane… Meh!"

10. 
    user-3395150 | Oct 14, 2020 06:21pm | #10

    It depends on the style of the piece. For some styles of furniture a gloss finish works better. For others, a satin finish suits the piece.