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Thread: Next step of finishing - what would you do?

  1. #1
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    Next step of finishing - what would you do?

    This is part of a 4 piece set - 2 cups, 2 plates. This is Ipe (Janka hardness 3600) from a discarded bench at UCSD.

    I started by sanding to 400, added a coat of de-waxed shellac, then maybe a half-dozen coats so far of wipe on Poly, sanded to 600 after 3 or 4 coats. This wood is really special and the cups are glossy without any tear-out. So I would like to get the sides of the plate as smooth. The tear-out in the end-grain isn't terrible, but I want to do the best possible.

    So what would you do next to level the end-grain tear-out pores. I can picture more de-waxed shellac, sanding every 3rd coat until smooth and filled in. Epoxy is possible. I could keep going with the wipe-on poly until it is filled in.

    What do you think?
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  2. #2
    Brian, I use shellac for filling defects, but applied only in the defects - not coating the entire piece. Preferably, complete the filling prior to starting with the WOP. I don't like the way epoxy sands.

    You may want to pour a small quantity of shellac into a container and let some of the alcohol flash off so it is thicker. The 2# cut out of the can is a bit thin and it can take many coats otherwise.

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  3. #3
    I wonder how it would look with a metallic powder, possibly a contrasting silver color filling in the pores?

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Mathews View Post
    I wonder how it would look with a metallic powder, possibly a contrasting silver color filling in the pores?
    i think there is a place for metallic or colored filler, but in tear out it would look exactly like what it is - tear out that someone has filled in lieu of removal.

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  5. #5
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    Brian,

    Probably not what you want to hear, but I would fix tearout like that before finishing. Best is another pass or two with a razor sharp gouge with very light cuts, usually better then even shear scraping (depending on the wood, of course). Wood prone to tearout is best stabilized somehow before cutting. Sometimes a couple of coats of sanding sealer (perhaps thinned) is sufficient but if the wood is crumbly I sometimes soak the wood with thin CA glue before the final cuts. I used two bottles of CA to save one bowl I should have just thrown away or used for chicken feed.

    Wet sanding with something can fill the voids nicely if they are not too big. A trick I learned from woodturner John Lucas - wet sand with thin CA glue. Put some CA directly on the (fairly coarse, maybe 150-100 grit) sandpaper and it coats the sawdust particles which fill the voids. This works better than I imagined. Surgical gloves are recommended.

    The problem with any of this is if the voids are much bigger than pores the fill can look unnatural since they are filled with a homogeneous material. I've gone to great lengths to salvage a piece or two by gluing in some bits of darker sawdust or even bark where appropriate or even [gasp!] to speckle or adding "figure" to the smooth surface of the filled in hole with fine marker. This is probably worth the effort if the piece is otherwise special or spectacular.

    JKJ

  6. #6
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    Thank you, John. Is that de-waxed or regular shellac?
    Steve, while I like contrasting filler in cracks and holes, I am trying to get this set as consistent as possible. Thank you for the suggestion.
    Veni Vidi Vendi Vente! I came, I saw, I bought a large coffee!

  7. #7
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    I have never turned this wood, but my experience is that sometimes a 60 grit "skew" is all that will work to get rid of tear outs. After the 60 grit, go to 80 grit, 120, etc... There are some woods that demand to be sanded from the lowest grit through the highest. I wet sand these woods and use either teak or Danish oil as my wetting agent.

  8. #8
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    I hate tear-out like this and a couple of things come to mind. I agree that fixing this before finishing is the best option.

    Remounting a platter like this can be tough if you have already turned away your method of holding. A vacuum can work but it isn't perfect since the platter can easily shift while re-truing the bowl. Combined with a little warping and you could have a mess. If you can remount it Ipe may be the perfect application for a negative rake scraper. That leads me to sanding.

    You could go back and preferably power sand starting at 180 or maybe 120 to remove the wood around the holes. I wouldn't go to 80 since the scratches from it seem to be impossible to sand out. I have turned Ipe but not in this application and you should use a good vacuum to remove the dust as well as a good dust mask to protect yourself. Ipe can sensitize and the effects are not nice. The issue with sanding is that the profile and thickness of the platter will change.

    I'm guessing that the tear-out was from a gouge or a scraper and not the sanding. If a sealer is needed then you might consider sealing it with CA glue, not to fill the holes but to stabilize it for the eventual sanding. The problem with Ipe is that the grain is so fine that there isn't going to be much space for the sanding dust to be adsorbed. The issue with the CA is that your woods color and texture may change.

    I guess that my approach would be to pull out my sanding system and carefully go to town.

    Good luck, your pieces look very nice.

    David G

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by John Keeton View Post
    i think there is a place for metallic or colored filler, but in tear out it would look exactly like what it is - tear out that someone has filled in lieu of removal.
    This reminds me of another thread not long ago where a member asked why Ishatani, in one of his videos was using solder (silver?) on a door pull. No doubt that solder was used to reinforce the creased bend but it was also applied to the very visible front part, seemingly for sole aesthetic purposes. The pull was made from a flat piece of brass and the front portion hammered into the desired shape. The hammer marks could've been ground and smoothed to form a perfect, homogeneous finished piece but Ishatani chose to enhance, celebrate or hide if you will the defects with a thin coating of solder. I thought the idea was brilliant and treatment very tasteful. He does this sort of thing elsewhere in his work too. Rather than hide natural defects in wood he incorporates them into the design. It's as if he's saying that it's OK that the wood is not perfect.

    As for the tear outs in the bowl I still think it would look great to fill the holes in with some type of contrasting material. My preference would be a metallic silver, shinier the better. A perfectly turned, homogeneous wood bowl looks great but so do those that have defects in them. But to each there own.

    BTW, I like my oatmeal slightly lumpy just the way I imperfectly make it.

  10. #10
    Brian, I always use dewaxed shellac.

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  11. #11
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    I am looking at a filler rather than a re-sanding at this point. The holes are about 1 fiber larger than a pore, and I spent a lot of time sanding the bare wood.

    One other very interesting thing about this wood is that the wood comes off in a combination of brown fibers and green-ish orange powder. There was actually much more powder when I used the bowl gouge (freshly sharpened) than the scraper. Very interesting stuff. It works nicely but can't be cut or sanded quickly.

    John, Keeton, I left a little de-waxed shellac in an open cup and will try some fill-in tonight and tomorrow.
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  12. #12
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    Brian, a few times I have wet-sanded with either BLO, shellac, "OB Shine juice" (equal parts of BLO, DA, and Shellac), and even wipe on poly. The dust fibers kind of fill in the pores/tearout. Like others have said, if you look at it with a magnifying glass, you may see the slightly different color or different chatoyance. But if you have decided that you want to fill the tearout....

  13. #13
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    Unless I sand this all of the way back (which I am not planning on doing at this stage) the slurry of wet sanding will be a slurry of poly or shellac, not of wood.
    Last edited by Brian Kent; 07-19-2017 at 5:19 PM.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Kent View Post
    Unless I sand this all of the way back (which I am not planning on doing at this stage) the slurry of wet sanding will be a slurry of poly or shellac, not of wood.
    I have filled with wood without resanding. Make sawdust from extra wood or scraps and wipe a oil or shellac slurry into cracks and holes, or press in dry sawdust with a tiny drop of CA added first to the void and/or added on top the CA (with one of the hair-like capillary applicator tubes). It does give you more control of the appearance since you can use any kind and color of wood and even sawdust from several different woods in different voids the same larger void.

    JKJ

  15. #15
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    This is working.
    After several layers of shellac, sanding from 220 to 600, and a quick coat of wipe-on poly, there are only a couple of micro-holes. I may do another round, but probably will leave it as is. It feels right and I have to use a bright light to find the spots.

    This is the same part of the platter as the first photo in the original post.
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