Thread: Best way of finishing a silky oak box

Hi Dengy,

My suggestion is....
fine sand AND then brush AND VACUUM the surface (silky oak has deep pores and the sanding dust gets into them and darkens under the finish)
apply the ubeaut white shellac with a clean rag and cover a whole area quickly so you don't 'drag' the finish
apply 4 or 5 coats of the shellac, at least an hour between coats, with a light sanding in between each coat (I use a 3M fine sanding pad, beige coloured)
you will know when you have applied enough coats because it eventually feels very 'slippery' as you apply the next coat
wait at least 24 hours before applying the wax, use a coarse cloth (like singlet material) to apply the wax do not use steel wool
buff it with a swansdown 'mop' or vigorously buff it with more singlet

fletty

fletty hit the nail on the head. Always works for me...lovely, shinny and smooth.

Thanks for this reply, Fletty, very much appreciated. How 'fine' do you sand the bare timber before finishing, please?

Also, should you use a weaker mix of shellac for the first coat to act as a grain filler?

Originally Posted by Dengue

Thanks for this reply, Fletty, very much appreciated. How 'fine' do you sand the bare timber before finishing, please?

oooh that's a dangerous question dengy! before the 'I-use-a-scraper-and-then-sand-to-1200-grit-and-measure-the-surface-with-an-electro-microscope' brigade get on line, I only sand to 400 with my orbital sander ... but don't tell anyone ,
A thinner sanding sealer might work well for the first coat but I haven't tried it.

fletty

Each to his own Fletty. I like my finish and as long as you're happy with yours everything is fine.

Rob

Personally I sand to 800 grit then a coat of sanding sealer (1 part white shellac (dewaxed) to 8-10 parts metho) allow to dry for an hour or so (overnight is even better) then wipe the surface over with 1200 grit. Just a light wipe over with the abrasive will get rid of any grain raised by the sealer.

Then follow the instructions above or get yourself a good brush. Cheapest and easiest to find is an "Camel-hair Artists Water Colour Mop" about 1 inch will do the job nicely. This brush should be available from any half decent art supply shop.

Cut the shellac at least 50/50 with metho and apply with the brush taking care to go with the grain and just barely overlap each stroke. Use slow controlled strokes with the brush and don't apply a lot of pressure let the brush do the job for you. DO NOT scrub at the surface with the brush. Be careful not to let get drips over the edge of the work.

Thinner coats will work better than full strength especially if you haven't used shellac before.

Practise on a scrap puece of the same timber that has been prepared exactly the same as the project piece. Not a good idea to jump in boots and all without doing this..

If you have a good finish that you are happy with, waxing shouldn't be needed. Wax is reasonably easy to damage so it seems a bit of a waste to put it over a surface that isn't. You can use EEE-Ultra Shine as a final cut and polish if you wish to bring up and even higher shine. EEE is a wax but it is also an abrasive and pretty much all the wax is removed from the surface of the work when the polishing is finished. If there is a slight waxy haze left behind, rub the surface well with soft clean cloth to remove it.

My preference for cloth is "brushed flannelette sheet" available for a very few of dollars a metres from Spotlight. Freshly laundered and dried, flannelette sheets from the bed works well also but can it can be life-threatening if you pinched from the cloths-line or a bed.

Last time I purchased some I got 8 metres of sheet a bit over 2 metres wide for around $30. Pretty good value if you cut them into squares around 180-200mm. I've been using the same lot for almost 2 years in demo's and am still only about 1/2 way through it and if you've seen my demo's you'd know that I don't scrimp on the cloth. I got around 800 pieces from that purchase.

Sorry for waffling about rag.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil

Many thanks for this very helpful response, Neil, I really appreciate it. I am sure a lot of others will benefit from this thread too.

How many coats of shellac would you recommend, Neil, and what drying time and sanding grit between coats should be used?

Number of coats will depend on how porous the timber is, how thing the shellac is how long it takes for the shellac to fill the pores of the timber,etc, etc,etc.

It is kind of like the how long is a piece of string question.

As for sanding between coats. If you apply it well you shouldn't need to sand between coats. If you application isn't so good and have brush marks etc. then you may need to sand with maybe 800 grit to smooth out the surface and delete brush marks (witness lines/marks). Shellac bonds to itself so sanding isn't needed if the surface from the previous coat is good. Poly and some other finished need to be roughed up between coats to give the finish something to adhere to.

Drying time: Once you can touch it and not leave a mark then it should be fine to recoat. Depends on the amount of metho in the mix, it could be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. If you have the time there is no reason why it can't be left over night or for a week or so before re-coating. Won't make much difference either way.

If you are applying the shellac with a rubber as in French Polishing then you should be able to do the entire box from top to bottom then go straight back to the beginning and start the process again, and again, and again, putting up to half a dozen coats on in a very short period of time.

Again I hope this is of some further help.

Cheers - Neil

Thanks Neil, will start today, with an initial aim of a sanding sealer coat and two coats of shellac and see how that turns out. I do have a preference for using the EEE Ultra cutting compound to finish off

Thanks Neil for the invaluable info , I'm starting to move in the shellac direction and you answered a lot of questions that were running around in my head

Glenn

Yesterday was a long day with this shellac. The problem has been that on the 2nd and subsequent applications, the final surface is rough and gritty in places, like it has fine dust on it.

I replaced all the flannelette rags, the shellac, cleaned the work surface etc in case they might have been contaminated by fine sawdust, but still the problem occurred.

For the first 4 coats, I used 1:4 mix, but there was no glossy finish, just gritty surface. Between each coat I sanded it back with 1200 grit , but the grittiness didn't disappear until after I had wiped the sanded box down with a rag.

Next 3 coats I used 1:2 mix, as recommended on the bottle. Again, each coat resulted in a gritty finish, again, no gloss.

I suspect that my technique of rubbing the shellac in and going back over it, instead of just a smooth single pass with no overlapping of previous passes, is the cause - with over-wiping, I suspect that I have buggered up the earlier layers.

What are your comments, please ?

Also, does the finish eventually come up glossy? Suspect I might be sanding off each coat with 1200 grit getting rid of the grittiness - 7 coats and still back at square one?

They say you learn from your mistakes

What are you wiping off with after sanding? I put some white spirits on the rag, as it won't dissolve the shellac. If you use metho, I suspect that could be the cause of the problem.

Thanks for this reply, Alex. I just wipe the sanded box with a cotton rag, and shake it out vigorously after each section.

I had thought white spirit, as made by Diggers and sold by Bunnies, was just a refined turps. Will give it a go