- Hi, Martin here. Thank you for joining me for
this week's turning video. I hope you're all well and
you've had amazing weeks and weekends in your workshops. Now this week's video is more
concentrated on finishing rather than actual turning. And I had a question from
John Horvath on last week's video regarding some finishing techniques I've used ages and ages and ages ago. And he asked for a little
bit of clarification on it. So, that's what I'm going to do. And it's about why I use
an oil and sealer as well. Now the piece I've got on the lathe is, oh it's about 11 inches,
something like that. And as you can see,
it's already been done. This was a demo piece from
the Maker's Central event a couple of weeks ago. And a lady came up to me and
asked if she could buy it. And I said yes, no problem,
but it needs to be refinished. So this project and John's question are, well they go hand in had
quite nicely together. And so I will just clean
this off, recolor it, and talk you through my finishing process. And it will be finished
with a lacquer for a change. So I'm going to speed through
most of the coloring bit, and I'll come back to you
when I'm ready to start applying the oil and I'll
explain the reasons why, and what it does. (jazzy guitar music) So there's the bowl,
cutback, sanded, colored, and ready for its finishing. Now John's question was specifically about my use of oil as part of my finishing process with sealer over the top. And the best way I can explain
that is I use a drawing oil, particularly Hampshire
Sheen's Foodsafe Danish Oil. That's part of the finishing
process as an embellishment rather than a finish on its own. It's a drawing oil, so it
polymerizes and it dries hard. Well as you'll see in a
second, it makes the grain pop as all oils do. So over the top of the
color, I'm going to put a single coat, probably a single coat of the Danish Oil. So a single coat, and
what you'll notice is that as the oil goes on, it
makes the grain of the wood pop really, really nicely. But then we need to let it dry because there's a solvent in it. The solvent must have full
evaporated before we move on to the next step. You can do this step
just with a saline sealer if you want to. The saline sealer will
make the grain pop too, but I prefer to have the grain pop with an oil before I put the sealer on. I like to seal it. This wood is quite thirsty, as it's sucking that oil in quite deeply. And then after the first coat, I'm just going to wipe off any excess. And with it done, I need
to let it dry completely before I move on to the
step of the saline sealer. It's the morning after the oil went on and just having a little feel of the piece and a little bit of a rub around. I can feel that the oil has gone off. It has dried, it has cured, which means I am ready now for my sealer. And I'm going to use a
cellulose-based sealer, and in particular, Hampshire
Sheen's Cellulose Sealer. And having turned this piece
before, I know that it needs probably three good coats of sealer before it'll be ready
for its final finish. So I'm putting it on quite quickly because I want to get it on evenly without any blotches or smearing. Now I choose a cellulose
sealer for the use with the intrinsic colors because it goes off
quickly, it dries quickly. It dries nice and hard. And it also takes a
little bit of the color off the surface, which for
the coloring techniques I use is exactly what I want
because as I keep saying, I don't want to hide the wood. I want to show what's in the wood. So if I take a little bit of
the color off the surface, as you can see, it still
stays a really nice, depth of color and we can see all of the figure in the
wood absolutely beautifully. Now that's the first coat on. Now bearing in mind the oil
also has a solid component too or it dries solid, I should
need less sealer on this than previously. So probably two coats will do. So I'm going to leave that
for a few minutes to dry off and then I'll be ready
for the second coat. First coat of this sealer has gone off and I'll just put on a second one. And it's really important
that you let the sealer dry before you start applying
your final finish, whether that's a lacquer
or wax or whatever. It doesn't matter, it's
got to be completely dry. Otherwise it'll dissolve the finish. Which is absolutely what we don't want. The sealer's dry and I'm looking
at the surface of the piece and I can see that the
surface is fairly even. And just to help clean it up a little bit, Dealing it with some shavings which should even off the surface even more. And now it's been de-nibbed,
I'm looking at it again and I can see that it's not
quite as even as I would like. Just as it comes around if you
look at this reflection here. Just as it comes around,
it's not quite so shiny, which tells me that the
surface is still a bit dull. So that needs a little
bit more sealer to it before it'll be ready
to put the lacquer on. Cause if I put the lacquer on now, the wood is going to start to absorb it, and we'll end up with a
slightly uneven finish. And then when that's done, it's
worth protecting your tenon and also protect your chuck as well. And protect the lathe bed too. And I'm going to use Hampshire Sheen's brand new Spray Gloss Lacquer. Right okay, so I've just
rigged up a very rudimentary headstock protector out of an old cardboard box. (metallic beads clinking) And make sure when using a lacquer, you've got plenty of insulation. Or you wear a face shield,
or preferably both. So I've given that a good shake and then about 20 to 30 centimeters away so 10 to 12 inches. I'm going just going to start applying a light coat of the lacquer. Now don't expect the lacquer to go on like glass straight away. It's going on to a very smooth surface so it may well sort of
orange peel a little bit. So that's the first coat. And also you don't want
to put too much on. If you put too much on
it's going to start to run and then you're going to
have all sorts of problems when it comes to putting it right. 20 minutes later, and we're
ready for the second coat. (metallic beads clinking) So exactly the same as before. (spraying) Got to be careful not to overcook it. Another 20 minutes passed
and so that's two coats on and I've got a piece of 400 grit abranet, or sandpaper would do. I'm just going to really lightly, just take the top off the
lacquer that's on there already. You don't want to take it all off, you just want to knock the top off. Just to start to even the surface out. Give your can another shake and go for coat number three. Leave that for 20 minutes,
put another coat on. Sand it back like I did a second ago, and then repeat that until
you've got six, seven, or even eight coats of lacquer on. And then leave it
overnight until it's gone completely hard and then you
can come back the next day and polish it. Right, it's Tuesday morning. I've had to leave it for a few days because I was demonstrating
in Cardiff on Saturday and I was teaching yesterday. So today's Tuesday and there are now, I think it's a total of 10 coats on there. I think I counted that right. It's either eight or 10, one or the other. Now as I'm turning this
around, you can see that it is really, really good. I'm so happy with how it's turned out. It's almost perfect. There are a couple of little pits or a few little imperfections in it, so it's not 100% smooth. A couple of extra coats would
probably smooth that out but I don't want to go
any further with it. So I'll need to polish it. And to polish it, I'm going to use some Yorkshire Grit original
and Yorkshire Grit microfine to polish it down to a
point where it'll look like, hopefully, it's been dipped in glass, which will be a superb finish. Now this whole finishing
process does take time but it is worth it when you
get it right, and you spend the time and the effort
and the attention on it. So I'm going to start with
the Yorkshire Grit Original. So I'm putting enough of the
grit on to cover the piece. And start the lathe fairly slowly. And I'm just going to work
the product into the lacquer just the same as you would do when using Yorkshire Grit on a normal piece. And I'm going to change
to a cleaner cloth. And just start to work
the product off the bowl. Let's just have a look. Oh yeah, that's come
up beautifully already. I'll spin the lathe up a bit,
just to take off the excess. Now you're going to need to
change to a clean piece of towel fairly regularly when
taking the excess off so you don't start burning
the product into the lacquer. Yeah, that's beginning
to look absolutely super. Now I'm going to switch
over to the microfine. And repeat the process. (jazzy guitar music) That's come up absolutely stunning. The microfine has done
an absolutely superb job. So now there's just one thing left to do and that's turn off the tenon, or rather re-turn, what am I saying? Re-cut the tenon so I can get it onto reverse mount it on to the chuck so I can do the same on the inside. So I'm going to do that
with a spindle gouge. That looks good to me. (beep) (beep) Not very happy. I've dinked it. So I'm going to cut it
all off and do it again. So it's about five days
after I dropped this piece as you saw. And in between lessons
and stuff and redoing it I've been applying another
few coats of lacquer. And it has turned out absolutely gorgeous. I'm really happy with
the depth of the shine. I'm really pleased with it. So I've got to get it off the lathe now and turn the inside of the bowl. So I've put down an old smock,
so if I do happen to drop it because it is so smooth,
it won't get damaged. So I'll just very carefully. Got it. All right, it's now
reversed, and I've got it on a set of gripper jaws. And now I've just got to
hollow out the inside. So this bit will be a musical interlude. So feel free to fast
forward a couple of minutes to the end of this if you
don't want to see some fast forwarded turning. And see you in a minute and
we'll look at the inside. (jazzy guitar music) So there's the inside
of the bowl, hollowed, sanded down to 600 this time. I normally only go down to four, but I thought this time, what the hell. And it's had it's sanding sealer on, which has been de-nibbed. And I have my Acme, lathe
protector on just to protect the headstock and the chuck
from any of the spray. So, back to the lacquer. (spraying) One. Now the last bit to do,
is to turn off the tenon. So I've got some kitchen towel here that I'm just going to cover the rim with, just to protect it against the aluminum. Make sure it's all good all around. And then close the jaws. Now I don't want to do it too tight and I don't want to do
it too loose either. I'm just going to give it a little push with my finger through the gap here just to see if I can
move it, which I can't. So I'm happy with that. And then tear off some of the excess towel so it doesn't get in my way whilst I'm turning off the tenon. So I'm happy that the
bowl is secure in the jaws and I'm going take the spindle gouge and very carefully turn off the tenon. So I've brought the tailstock up just for a little bit of support. And then just take my time teasing off the tenon. (mellow jazzy music) So here it is. It's finished. I can't tell you how
pleased I am to have reached the end of this somewhat mammoth project. It wouldn't normally take me quite as long to finish a project like this, but with lessons and demonstrations and making Hampshire Sheen
and stuff in between it all, it has taken an inordinate amount of time. If I was to be doing this normally with ten coats of lacquer on the outside and ten coats of lacquer on the inside, I would expect it to
take three to four days for the finishing and maybe an hour for the coloring and
all the turning stuff. Getting on a finish as nice and as fine as this takes time, so don't rush your finishing. It's your finishing that's
going to be looked at for years to come. So take your time and make sure it is as absolutely as perfect as
you can possibly get it. So thank you very much indeed for watching down here are a few videos I think you maye be interested in. And if you click on the bowl, you can subscribe to my channel. Thanks very much and I'll look forward to seeing you again soon. Bye for now.
