Thread: Quilted Bubinga- how to finish for maximum "pop" and a deep shine.

Burbinga is pretty easy to make look good.

I have finished it with poly and oil and combinations and the grain has always jumped out of the timber.

I tend to sand to about #500 and might run a finer grit over it. It sands to a very smooth and hard finish.

Generally I use Oil ( Rustins Danish oil or Livos, Ardvos oil) and add about a third poly. The idea of the poly is to add some durability and keep the lustre a bit longer.

Mop or brush on a good coat of the mix. Leave it about 10 minutes to soak in or bind with the previous coat. Just don't leave it to get tacky or you wont be able to polish it off.
Remove the excess oil and polish with a soft cloth - old T-shirts are the best.

Give it 4 coats.
You can get a bit more shine by adding more coats.

This will give a very good finish.

After a week, when everything is set hard, you can try some of the Ubeaut EEE. Rub on some paste and buff off. This is best with a down mop on an electric drill.

If you need a tough finish, you could use Feast and Watson's Floorseal. It is a poly that is supposed to contain tung oil. I like the finish it gives.
Maybe try a coat of a scrap of sanded burbinga.
It is simple, tough and the burbinga will look good.

It is a great looking timber.

Thanks for your reply Scally.

A short followup to this post.

Has anyone used Rustin's plastic coating over larger pieces like this?

I've used Rustin's Danish oil + Black Bison Fine paste wax in the myrtle speakers, and Cabots' Gelclear in the maple speakers, to good effect, although they taking MANY coats (close to 10) to achieve a nice satin finish.

I wonder how many coats I'd need for a glassy high gloss finish...

If you want to pop the grain in Buninga try giving it a coat of Z-poxy finishing resin prior to finishing. It works a treat on Bubinga back and sides on acoustic guitars.

Hey Thanh,

The speakers look great but Im also fascinated by the music stand behind the speakers. Judging by the height of the music stand Id say you play a wind instrument of some sort?

Cheers Martin

Bubinga is a beautiful wood. I make many speakers using it and on rare occasion have had a chance to use some figured Bubinga. It scrapes very well and will bring out the grain much clearer than sanding. I prefer a satin finish, so apply coats of gloss urethane and oil finish until I am near the final one or two coats. I then switch to satin finish for only one or two coats, so the solids of multiple coats of the satin finish do not cloud the wood. These Orion speakers also have ebony trim along the baffle panels.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

The speakers look great but Im also fascinated by the music stand behind the speakers. Judging by the height of the music stand Id say you play a wind instrument of some sort?

Or maybe guitar?

How about a brushing lacquer with each coat rubbed out with fine abrasives. After three or four coats, rub out with auto polish. I used this technique with this solid bubinga guitar amplifier cabinet. Here it is after the second of four coats.

Originally Posted by tktran

Hi,

This is my 3rd set of speakers, and first time working with Bubinga.

Here are my previous attempts, with thanks to Harry72 and others here at Woodwork forums:



Here are the new speakers:


Any ideas of what to finish Bubinga with?

Is it possible to get the grain to pop, AND give it a piano-like high gloss shine?

I'd love to give a hand rubbed high gloss polyester a go, but no idea what to buy or what equipment I'd need, let alone the application.

many thanks,
Thanh.
PS. Any queries about building speakers welcome...

Episode 32 of "The Wood Whisperer" is called "Pop goes the maple." Fascinating stuff. Mark's take on this is that what causes the figure in figured wood is that, because of the folds in the grain (which causes the figure itself) we are actually looking at bits of end-grain as well. End grain soaks up stuff far faster and better than the face of the timber.

What he did was to put a base coat of finish on in that contained a dye. After that has gone off and been sanded back, he proceeded to varnish as per usual methods. You can see right there in the podcast what the difference is between "popped" and "non-popped" timber. It's startling.

So I would suggest that you make your first coat a coloured one....something close to the colour of the actual timber. Then rub it back and once it's gone off, it will bring out the features of the wood, since that will have darkened the fibres that are actually end-grain.

I worked in a violin maker's shop many years ago, and that's the reason why curly maple is so astounding on violins. That first coat or two makes the flame leap out. Then comes the varnishing.

Michael

Michael

Originally Posted by ciscokid

Or maybe guitar?

How about a brushing lacquer with each coat rubbed out with fine abrasives. After three or four coats, rub out with auto polish. I used this technique with this solid bubinga guitar amplifier cabinet. Here it is after the second of four coats.

A clear finish such as lacquer will show the wood grain, but some clear lacquers will yellow over time. The get the chatoyancy of the wood figure to show well, it is best to plane or scrape the wood surface. The Lacewood pictured below was sanded with 400 on the left piece and planed on the right piece. Sanding leaves fine scratches that reduces the chatoyancy of the wood.

That test is interesting Sharpdon.

I would love to see the result of say, sanding the piece on the left from 400 up to say 600 then 'wet sanding' with oil up to say 1500 grit versus the straight scraped sample on the right.

Not sure that it is a straight sanding versus scraping argument.

BTW - those Bubinga speakers and design are stunning.

Fascinating thread and really beautiful work is dislayed here.

There is a place for this thread in the "Finishing" forum, I believe.

Originally Posted by tktran

Hi,

This is my 3rd set of speakers, and first time working with Bubinga.

Here are my previous attempts, with thanks to Harry72 and others here at Woodwork forums:



Here are the new speakers:


Any ideas of what to finish Bubinga with?

Is it possible to get the grain to pop, AND give it a piano-like high gloss shine?

I'd love to give a hand rubbed high gloss polyester a go, but no idea what to buy or what equipment I'd need, let alone the application.

many thanks,
Thanh.
PS. Any queries about building speakers welcome...

ok......listen this is what i do with tropical wood .....first knock on it with a piece of round wood like a broom handle wood ..to test the hardness of the sound ..
then look carefully at the grain and in the way it travels ...no wax....just some ultra violeted lineseed oil...thta you will polish with a bottle or a round piece of glass...this technic is found in all the museum 's of the world restoring anciente pieces...
you c(ant use an element that will cut the folloing of the vibration !this is a major issue between musicians and craftman ..of course in the industry nobody will tell you this ..
it's not a money making process ..

Hey There,

I have a "Warwick" Bass Guitar that has a curly Bubinga drop top on it. Its finished with oil (not sure exactly what oil they use, will try and find out) and then polished with pure natural Bees Wax, I'm at work at the moment but will try to post a picture when I get home. IMO this would be the only way to finish Bubinga, but it does depend on what type of finish you want . . . . Satin, Flat, Gloss etc. I cetainly would'nt put anything un-natural on it (varnish, poly or the like).

Hope it works out well whatever you decide.

Pete

Good Morning TKTran

Collectively, you have received some excellent advice; I use a variation on Scally's method, albeit on different timbers, and would welcome any follow-up comment by Scally.

After sanding to #500 or 600, I lightly sand with steel wool. Even smoother!

Then dry brush thoroughly to remove all sanding dust. Then wash with rag moistened with turpentine to remove even more sanding dust. Dust => cloudiness.

Before applying the first coat, I moisten the wood with mineral turpentine; This pre-wetting allows the poly to penetrate into the grain better.

For first two coats, sometimes three, I use pure polyurethane (estapol) and rub off with old sheet after ten minutes. This fills grain, and gives much better final finish.

Between coats, rub very lightly with steelwool and wipe with turps moistened rag. No dust!

Final two coats, I use pure danish oil (Watyl). This facilitates refreshing in five or six years when the surface starts to look tired.

Heed Scally's advice not to let the danish oil go tacky - its easy to avoid but hard to fix.

Cheers

Graeme