Thread: Thirsty wood

A coat of shellac should do the trick.

G'day Ed,
I'm trying to avoid the likes of shellac, not really sure why - hoping that mineral oil or tung oil or such will work under the U-Beaut products.Shellac may be the answer though
Thanks.
Bruce.

With redgum tool handles I use a traditional pale boiled linseed oil (PBLO) method as follows.

1) wipe on a coat of PBLO - rub on with cloth leave to dry.
2) Use same cloth, wet an area of the cloth about the size of a 50c piece with PBL and 1 or 2 drops of white sponsors product white shellac.
3) Repeat 2) with 3-4 drops of white shellac per 50c size area. maybe repeat again if you think it necessary.
4) Allow to thorougly dry
4) finish with sponsors product natural wax.

This will seal off the timber allowing the wax to do it's job. The degree of shine depends on the smoothness of the finish but it will not be overly glossy but leaves a nice smooth tactile finish. It will need regular waxing every month or so.

An alternative would be danish oil but RG will still soak a lot of it up.

To seal a timber, especially old Red gum, you need to apply a coat of sealer then give it time to harden, don't be in a hurry because your next application will melt the first thusly soaking in further applications, the rule is, coat don't soak, give hardening time between applications.

Bellyup - How fine are you sanding?

Shellac (white shellac) as Ed said is a great base and will do the job of sealing. Shellawax is a shellac based finish.

Then again if you want to feed the timber some boiled linseed oil white shellac, as Bob said, would do it. But will darken the redgum considerably and needs a while to dry.

I reckon sanding very finely (up to 1200 grit or more) then using EEE-Ultra Shine and a couple or three coats or Shellawax, applied as per the instructions, should do the job nicely.

Do not use mineral oil (paraffin oil) as it is a non drying oil and not the right thing to be used under any surface coating.

Hope tis is of some help.

Cheers - Neil

Thanks All,
I appreciate the advice and will give it a go.
Bruce