go to finishes, woodworking frustration - Monday Lunch Discussion 7-13-15

welcome back to another Monday lunch break discussion just a little unscripted talk about what we've been doing this week what we plan on doing what we could think about and I try to offer you a little tip or technique this week we're going to discuss easy go to finishing methods I use for most of my projects nowadays and that kind of stuff this week I'm still roughing out that tree we have harvested about two weeks and I'm kind of entering the frustrating stage what I'm talking about why I'm roughing something out is I will stick a rough bowl on it and it gets big enough that I can pour out a secondary bonus Bowl I will do that one like the idea is to get it very even thickness all the way through plus a little foot some way of attaching if I'm pouring something out I'm generally going to put a recess in here because I find it grips a little bit better I have torqued off tenants before and then uh they I try to paint the end grain you can see I paint the inside and outside that way most of the moisture content will be leaving through the long grain you know slow it down from here I will stick this up in my attic up there for six months to a year and then we will either finish turn it or we'll turn it one more time and coming down the general thickness I you go for the rule of thumb is 10% of the total width so if you are got a tennis ball you want to get about an inch down here I have found out certain species you can go thinner on other species you can go thicker oak on I at least this particular tree that's one of the frustrating things I find in wood training is it's different from tree to tree me think it's different with species to species they come down to tree to tree when you harvest it that got stuff basically how much water was in it to begin with I am finding most of these pecans that I've been harvesting the past two weeks I probably turn should turn them a little bit thinner because already about quarter the ones I roughed out and cracked and pointless where they're not trash this one right here I'm giving a crack along the base right there I think you might be save abou but I won't know in six months I am doing the kind of frustrating part of it because again we harvested this tree about two three weeks ago and as best as you can prep it until it's roughed out there you're gonna get some waste some crackage and I'm to the point now that about one every third Bowl is just trash here's a good example this is a piece of walnut I've had for a while and you know it started out as a nice 12 inch Bowl something I could get 80 bucks for giving my Thomas Benton do it for utilitarian Bowl but there were some minor cracks on the outside something not that big a deal buy steeper from every Bowl sometimes a little crack like that no big deal you go in there and should disappear but think about it if you got a 12-inch bow and you go in one-inch well that bowl is now 10 inches because it comes down twice so all sudden you're nice 12 inch Bowl is a lot smaller so you're not gonna be able to charge as much at farmers markets and stuff like that but it requires more work because you had to come down that crap so this 12 inch Bowl I came down and then the crackhead come down loaded more so I came in another inch so I lost basically four inches so far and yet that crack was still there but it wasn't all the way through I just got a song started diving third so I start shaving it off off off off until I get basically a worthless UFO that still got this stupid crack in it I mean so I now have maybe 45 minutes into turning this thing another hour harassing it and it is basically bought from a trash can yes missus another one that one I had worked on this morning here's another one I work on this morning I finally got to the point where all the cracks were gone and then I win another half inch guess what popped up little bar conclusion that bar conclusion had another crack within it so it was cracking on the inside once again you never would know but that when I say that I'm getting back to the frustrating point is because now that the wood has started drying up those uncertainties start popping up it's not like working flat work where even though it might warp or Cup or something like that you can deal with it if you get a crack it stretch my dad you know let's throw some epoxy into it let it sit for well well that's adding another hour to labor into it you can add turquoise to cracks like a step but are you gonna get your money back down and when I say I'm getting frustrated sometimes they said hey my back in my head I'm turning me I'm seeing here what every hour I spent on this is less income I'm making I'm putting more labor into it and I'm not going to be able still afford any more money so at some point you just kind of have to crash it and grab something else and that's kind of where I'm getting to this point in the pile we got it I've got a good 40 bowls up there another ten green finish ones in my local gallery but when you started out with sixty and eighty yeah there's a lot waste going on last week I was talking about I was having problems with my finish on the mill paint well basically that was the first day and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't drying past the Schleck know me drives really fast so today I'm going to talk about my go to finish I'm gonna explain what was going wrong basically it came down to this little jar right here my shellac had gone back even though I had only bought this thing about three four months ago they tip something went wrong with it and it just went bad so it was not fully curing so that was the problem I was having now you can see I've got my go-to shellac bottles right here this is straight Zinser shellac it comes in about two three two one and you can see this is bad but I wanted you to see that you gotta mix it up because it kind of settles out it makes you slack with alcohol there you go what I use most often a one-pound cut how do I get a one-pound cut well I'm not going to mix legs that's too much work for me I love simply by the sealcoat stuff which comes to the two pounds fill up half a bottle with alcohol fat half the bottle with this stuff and I got my 1 pound cut this is what I use most often and I'll do a demonstration with it in the second showing you how I use it just cuz it's fast easy and it gives it good nice next to the wood finish that doesn't feel like a film sometimes I will pet go straight I will add a last two pound cut which is just this stuff straight from the can and then we got a three pound right here the other go to finish I have is just straight walnut oil and if I'm ever doing a salad bowl or something that's going to be Willy email mate biscuit my utilitarian bowls or utilitarian surfaces this is the finish I'd go to it takes a couple days to fully cure but that's okay for that kind of work and almost all the time all my turnings I will put a little beeswax on the top of it on my flat work my furniture on top of these I will add some kind of paste wax my favorite is this little six citrus shield for no other reason than I like to smell this smells like oranges the bad thing about this one is I'm finding is this is really the first time I've worked out of this warehouse and because it's a metal warehouse and that's not very well insulated there's not very much air movement like 90 degrees outside it's a little bit over a hundred in here and finding the most of my pace waxes are almost trying to liquid at that temperature so I'm having to keep them in the refrigerator just to keep them solid put off my work so you already see a little demonstration I'm using shellac when you finishing what I have right here is a little elbow this came out of San Marcos a yellow tenon on the back that's gonna be the backside and I'll be the front side obviously I have that hollowed it out yet this is how I rough turn work I've got this one on a little screw Chuck that's telling us the screw is actually held in my vise I mean yeah like the screw is done in my Chuck I just make things faster this is generally how I rough turn step this around 10 inches anything bigger than that I don't really trust the screw Chuck it's not that long it's a little one way set up from there there I would use to live centers and I pretty much always keep a live Center on the back even with my screw Chuck just to maintain stability because I do like to turn these things fast but I am trying to get them done quickly so what I'm going to show you is how I how I use the shellac finish and then after I flip it and call out the inside I will show you how to use the old wax finish this is the bow I am turning green so I'm not going to let it sit up in the attic which means I've got to turn it really really thin so that as it warps and moves there is not as much pressure so there's less chance of it cracking I lose about one and maybe ten of these to cracking but they do have a kind of a nice warped look to them when they're done this Elm came from San Marcos in the downtown area of San Marcos got a little pink and and stuff like that was kind of cool okay so real quickly what I've done is I've sanded it down to about 220 grit grit starting at 120-180 and then going to 220 so it's fairly smooth right now but being Elm it still does have it - all the pores I didn't find any tear-out I generally just to scuff it up a little bit if I can I will go straight from a blade but that's not always possible and normally if I meant flying shellac I would do Gus and it's about 220 I use shellac on bowls that are more decorative or stuff like I put added no painter and I've been doing the entire Mill Creek series on this one I probably should put no paint on this one but just port for today's little demonstration this will be fine so what up guys my one pound cut which was 50/50 of the seal coach Zinser steel coat it's a new jar I am going to show you how to fix a shellac mistake by using that bad stuff in a second but I want to show you how how to make a very nice finish and we're going to use shellac is a little bit with pore filler I pretty much use one pound for just about everything because I find it soaks into the wood a little bit better than the straight from the can of seal coat for that but you do have to apply all more coats what you're going to see me do is my technique it's kind of sloppy but it seems to work okay and I'm going to leave the camera running so you can see how long it takes to dry I only waited about five five minutes if that long in between coats so I like to use these foam disposable brushes with shellac I will just leave it in a little jar and I'll use the same brush all day long for my shellac and just toss it at the end of the day and they're only about 35 40 cents if you buy them in bulk so it's not that big a deal I got my one patch flag shake it up before you use it off the top top and because it's one pound I don't worry about I will just lay my brush down I'll just give it a little squirt and just kind of keep a wet edge and just don't worry about how much you're putting on it'll soak in most of what we're doing right now is alcohol so it's gonna evaporate pretty fast you can already see it's all almost evaporated on that side right there already so if I let that sit for a couple minutes I'll come back do a quick sand and then work it over I'm going to let this normally I let it spin but just so you can see it dry I'll go turn it off and I'll come back in a few minutes and I'll time-lapse it okay that was roughly two minutes and it's already dry so I'm going to put another coat on just turn it spinning and this same technique works for flat work I'll do the same exact thing except if I'm moving the brush that time just drizzle it on and less soak in just like that okay okay that it was about two minutes again it's dry it's not tacky to the touch and I've got my 320 grit sandpaper right here so I'm just gonna quickly do a quick sanding and I want you to notice something the sawdust is actually a white that's actually the shellac it's not the wood anymore so I just roughed it up with sandpaper and you can see it's kind of a dull white now this time I'm going to actually apply the shellac with some 320 grit sandpaper and that's going to create a slice slurry that'll fill any pores that I have there same technique just kind of dribble it on working it in as long as it your sandpaper is wet it'll keep flowing on it's not gonna look pretty this time but as soon as that dries all that sawdust will fill in any pores and would your last sanding and apply the last coat that's enough time that just went wind wash my hands came back and it's not tacky anymore and you can see it's a little bit duller you don't see that shellac shine because it's mixed in with sawdust so quick sanding with 320 grit actually I'm going to use a - 220 grit this will knock it back down to the ports now that first few coats basically got soaked in so that the later coats didn't have to soak in as far so that the sawdust would fill the pores now we have something that is really has a nice tactile finish to it sand that I've burned through right there a little bit but no big deal April kicks will use a two-pound stuff this time this is just straight out of the can alright and when it's fairly my little balls are full like this basically you got to do is tilt it over a little bit and one or two drops just shake it up before you do anything yeah once again my little tiny foam brush just lay it down drizzle Lowe shellac on just keep your surface wet and end up with a nice film finish well I like about Schleck is when at these lower pound cuts it's got so much alcohol in it the alcohol acts kind of like a flattener you don't really end up with brush marks even if you're using a bristle brush you okay that's just about enough time for me to go to the restroom and you can look at that nice smooth finish very few brush marks at all basically the last thing I would do to this is I would use a little scotch brite pad and wax and kind of buffed out and that wax would take any lines that were present and they buff those out and they'll actually give it a nice matte finish I'll do that after I do the interior but I want to show you something real quick so that last one was a two pound cut and this is a three pound cut straight from the Zinser bull's eye flat I know this stuff has gone bad it will not cure it isn't the alcohol that's gone bad is the actual shellac it always stay mixed up in normal atmosphere for a little while that's why most of shellac cans have been expire manufactured day so you can know how long they'll be good hi I was the only bought this can I want to say two three months ago it went bad pretty fast but I've been it didn't stay up and excuse me if the can was mostly empty back so this little bar Jarrah so I'm gonna apply this on that one I'm gonna flash it off I don't really recommend clashing slack off not i flash dies all the time but if you flashed off shellac it kind of gets a little wrinkle finish but with a three-pound cut that's okay because if you sand it back that wrinkle finish goes away that's a quick way to do it remember once the alcohol is gone the slack is dry bar shaking the can up and I apply it the same way just kind of drizzle it on keep a wet edge and it is noticeably thicker going on heavier cut has less alcohol in it that's more slack flash it off real quick now this is dry okay the alcohols gone but they're still gumminess to it and when slack is bad it will get to this kind of gummy soft you feel like you can push it your fingerprint shows up in it stage and it will never get any better so in fact I've screwed up here's what's nice about shellac it's somewhat reversible because slack dissolves in alcohol all you need to do is get some denatured alcohol low rag soaked the rag in it and just remove all the shellac off the top layer it just comes right off we might have to use several pieces of that rag because at certain portion of that rag the wari absorbs on the slack and just let it sort off into your rack that denatured alcohol will just Reese off him in and you just take it off and once you got the old slack off put it on Eclipse you're good slap simple as that I'm basically reversing all that work I just did but we are back down to the unsign II finish so I'm going to go back to put my 1 pound cut on it I'm gonna flip it carve out the interior and I will show you my second go to style of finishing using oil wax okay so here's my second go to style finish this is a little wax very simple you can do this on box tops just about anything I turned the inside out and I'm about a quarter of an inch to probably eighth in the niche on bottom this is not perfect you see there's a little tear out right there because I find that whenever I turn these green things because it's still wet and still flexible on these outsides when I go to finish it with a scraper there gets to be a little cadence in there it kind of vibrate the wood vibrates so I always seem to give a little bit tear out right in the middle of the bowl kind of that one transition and what I found is I sanded smooth I think I say in that low spot a little bit but it's going to show up when it's in the raw form so here we go I got my widow I am using walnut oil because you can buy the olive olive oil section of your grocery store it's cheap and this is actually a little bit more traditional than something like linseed oil I don't know why it's not more popular and more people don't talk about it walnut oil is one the only natural oils that will fully cure so it makes a great finish oil I just soaked a little rag in that paper towel in it and I'll turn my lathe on and just apply it for about a minute then wipe off what doesn't soak in I'm not putting very much on just to get in that top layer would change its color to hide any tear-out nothing spectacular here and you can see I'm just dabbing it on just getting the surface slightly wet so they'll see its own reflection I will turn it off make sure I hit any spots with a little bit tear out but notice that center section you don't really see it see it anymore it's there somewhere I just don't know where that well really does cover it up well now the oil is still wet so you really shouldn't be able to do much with it I'm gonna put the cap back on remember these little rags lay them out to fully dry but don't just put them in with sawdust or something like that because they will go boom so I'll take another dry piece now crank the speed up and I'm going to add some heat so the heat will help set the set the oil and sure it just a tad bit it's not gonna be fully cure but that's okay I know a lot of people will make their own mixtures of oil and wax well what I'm about to do is just do that right on the piece I have a piece of beeswax right here I'm gonna apply it and you can do this with flat work - all I'm doing is putting a loose ball amount on it now I've also got slack on the outside so I'm going to take that same piece of paper and I'm going to burnish the outside let the outside furnish and the inside has a wax on it so I crank the speed up I'm going to melt the wax into the top layer of the wood so it's gonna mix with that oil so I get my own oil wax next you'll see a paper fly off cuz it just shreds this stuff but just sitting on the surface though wipe off there we go the interior this bowl is now more than food safe of course shellac is food safe too but it's got a nice matte finish to it that most people seem to like I don't know what it is about the wax I'll put the wax on the outside - right over the Schleck keep pinky a matte finish and people just would like to feel the wax better than anything else here we go so I'm going to turn the bass off and then we'll have the finish bowl so there we go finish bowl you can see the oil on the insides a little bit matte but the wax adds a little bit of a sheen to it compared to I just put wall on the bottom you can see it is a lot flatter looking it's a wax that little gives a little bit shame then we have a 2 pound cut of shellac on the outside you can see it gives a little bit of gloss I don't like going higher than two pounds simple because it gives that plastic feel to me at least this feels like wood still even though it's got a little bit of a shine to it see that there you go where's the interior is somewhat matte so there you go one bowl oil and wax fast and easy finish shellac and wax a fast and even finish yes I have a little bit of beeswax on top and then just straight oil on the bottom three of my go-to finishes if I need to I can go back and reapply a little bit oil even to the Schleck portion it will absorb through but this is it it's fast and quick and kind of goes back to what I was frustrated with earlier today spending a lot of time on something that you're really only going to get 40 or 50 bucks for and that farmers mark there's a birthday you don't need to spend a whole lot of time the customers will be really happy and you'll make a little bit more money you'll be a little bit more productive well I hope you got something out of this little discussion it's unscripted probably dragged on a little bit too long but I'll try and keep them up and I want you to remember one last thing it's always worth the effort to learn something create new things and share them with others y'all be safe and have fun

Channel: wortheffort

Views: 42,662

Rating: 4.8544602 out of 5

Keywords: wortheffort, finishing, finish, oil, shellac, wax, walnut, walnut oil, woodworking, wood working, bowl turning, turning, bowl, easy finish, easy finishing, fast, fine woodworking, Wood Finishing, Woodturning

Id: bt5FZmcisjg

Length: 27min 10sec (1630 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2015