Thread: Noob question about timber finishing

Beech is a wonderful timber. It will work well with just about any finish but I would not leave it unfinished. As a minimum I'd use a sanding sealer and a wax coat. Clear one or two part finishes would also give the wood effect you want but more likely to look plastic.

Left raw any moisture in the air would eventually get at the grain and start to open it up and go rough and dull.

Firstly welcome to the forum.

It is your project and you can choose what you want to do with it. In relation to the question you may wish to apply a finish or just keep the timber in its raw state.

That being said not many pieces of furniture are left in the raw. One reason is that applying some sort of finish(coating) is to give some protection to the piece. This would help prevent damage to the piece like dents, scratches or stains.

The type of coatings range from wax to an epoxy type finish. The wax giving the least amount of protection as this is very soft and the epoxy giving a very good protection.

Another reason for applying a finish is to highlight the grain and that changes on the type of finish and species of wood.

If you want to keep your piece in it's natural state then that should be fine. Personally I would apply something and I might suggest that you try some wax finish on a test piece to see how this turns out.

Most finishes work, but have advantages and disadvantages. French polishing takes some skill, can give a high gloss polish if you know how and is easily repaired. Polyurethane can be sprayed, brushed or wiped on easily, satin or gloss, gives good protection but if damaged, needs to be removed and completely redone. Oil can be applied by hand or ROS, may take several applications, and can give anything from a satin to gloss finish depending on how you work it, and is easily repaired.
For any finish, it's wise to use a shellac sanding sealer first. Sand the wood to your desired grit, apply shellac and lightly sand again. This gives a better feel to the timber, and allows more even absorption of the finish.

Hi paddyjoy,

Welcome to the forum. When i started with my projects I used danish oil, there are many varieties available but something like a cabots should be easy to find and easy to work with. It is just a mix of tung oil, thinners and a varnish of sorts (i may be wrong in the exact constituents of the stuff). The good thing about it is that it's super easy to apply and it leaves a reasonably durable and smooth finish which hardens the surface of the wood and makes it more resistant to dents. Basically all you do is wipe it on with a rag or brush or roller, leave it sit for 5-10min and then wipe off along the grain with a clean cloth. I usually apply 3 coats with 8hrs in between but that's not strictly necessary. I have done pieces where i have done 2-3 consecutive coats and it came out just fine.

The only downside is that it may "yellow" your timber a little, best to check on an offcut if you haven't thrown them all out yet, or on the back/underside of your piece. Most finishes will colour your timber a little though, unless you use white shellac. Shellac is nice to work with too and leaves a very smooth finish, the downside is that you will need to lightly sand after each coat because it tends to lift the grain a little each time. The upside is that because the shellac has a methylated spirits base it dries very quickly and can be recoated within minutes instead of hours. I usually sand down to 180g or 240g and then start applying coats of shellac, after each coating i switch to a finer sandpaper working my way up to 600g. You can go further to achieve the french polished look but i find that somewhere after 4-5 coats you get a really smooth finish. The real benefit is that it's quick and you can apply all your coats in one evening provided you don't have too much surface to sand.

Hope that helps, keep in mind that everyone here has a preference and there is really no right or wrong with finishes...you just need to make sure you try your finish on a sample piece first so that you don't ruin your project with something you ultimately might not like.

Good luck and post some pictures of your project, we love to see work in progress(WIP) postings here.

Cheers
Mat

Thanks for all the replies, the main aim is to protect the timber but I'm trying to not change the original colour if possible. Will try a few test samples now that I have some ideas on products.

Not really ready for publically humiliating myself with photos just yet ;-)

Hi Paddyjoy,

I'm a novice myself but the research I have done says if you want to maintain the colour of your natural timbet then use white shellac (as Lplates mentioned). I'm about to begin my first shellac finished project after much research (probably too much) as all advice I've received agree shellac is very very easy to use & best of all (due to the methylated spirits) drys very quickly allowing several coats in short time.

Good luck with the TV cabinet & yes posting pictures is mandatory !

Originally Posted by paddyjoy

...Not really ready for publically humiliating myself with photos just yet ;-)

We won't harass you......much.....

Seriously no pressure on the photos but do post questions if you get stuck.

My 2 cents worth.

water base varnish will not yellow with age as will oil based product, I built a set of shelves 15 years ago and used water based varnish , and they never changed colour.

alternate is BLONDE shellac, and then wax after the grain filler, the BLONDE shellac will not yellow the timber as the normal orange shellac does, and will protect, and seal the grain , while the wax will give added protective layer that is renewable, and over time give that loverly deep polished shine you get with well cared for antique furniture.

Jeff
vk4

Thanks I'm going to try and locate some white shellac this week.

In terms of sanding, what should I be using for this type of wood initialy and in between coats, random orbital, belt or by hand?

Belt sanders are for moving bulk amounts of wood, not for finishing. For flat panels, a ROS is good, for narrower boards a firm block with cork faces is the go.
I sand to 800 grit. Some would say that's going overboard, but I can tell the difference in the finish. Give it a coat of shellac, let it dry then sand lightly, again to 800 grit. If you want to use shellac as a final finish, I suggest Ubeaut hard shellac as the final coat, over blonde shellac. Otherwise you can use pretty well any finish over shellac.

I agree with AlexS on the sanding.

I should also mention that I can be a little lazy and sand to 400 grit as I do not have a ROS.


And between coats I go the higher grit.

Thanks I'll get some high grit discs.

Haven't picked up any products yet but I did a sample with some cabots water based floor polyurethane I had under the house and it came up pretty well and didn't change the colour.

Here are some pics so you can have a laugh, started out with a piece of beech 3100 x 375 x 38, cut it with the circular saw into three pieces and stuck it together with some brackets.

It's basically half way between a bench and table.

1.jpg2.jpg

The most convenient place I've found to get fine grit sanding discs is by online order from the Sandpaper Man on these forums.