Maple Salad Bowl

[Pat Scott]

Maria, the finish is an oil finish that I dip my turnings in. It is equal part of BLO, Danish Oil and WOP. After it drys for about four days, I Beall buff. In this case, since it is a salad bowl, I did not try to get a high gloss buff on it.

Steve, beautiful bowl. Certainly a ton of figure in the wood. However I have to comment on your finish.

The oil finish that you are using is a diluted mixture of other diluted finishes. "Danish Oil" is a broad or generic term for a mixture of oil and varnish that is thinned by Mineral Spirits. If you were to mix equal parts of Linseed Oil, Poly, and Mineral Spirits, you just created your own Danish Oil. The oil enhances the grain and figure of the wood but has been thinned by the Mineral Spirits so it soaks into the pores better, Varnish/Poly provides protection but it also has been thinned by Mineral Spirits so it also soaks into the pores instead of building up on the surface, and Mineral Spirits is the carrier that carries the thinned oil and poly into the pores.

Danish Oil = Linseed or Tung Oil (binder)
Varnish (resin)
Mineral Spirits or Naptha (carrier)

WOP is nothing more than Polyurethane that has been diluted with mineral spirits. If you were to take Poly straight from the can and mix it 50/50 with Mineral Spirits you've just created your own WOP.

So what your finish consists of is taking BLO and adding it to a mixture of Danish Oil (that already has thinned oil and poly) and then adding more thinned poly with the WOP. Basically you're mixing Danish Oil with Danish Oil. If you're buying Danish Oil off the shelf, it might have Tung Oil in it instead of BLO.

I'm not trying to bust your chops or anything so please don't take it that way, I'm just trying to explain what Danish Oil is. Also, I'm sure you know it's "crotch" of the tree and not "crouch".

[Steve Doerr]

Pat, thanks for the info and no "chops" were busted.

As far as "crouch" vs "crotch"--I guess I just wanted to pounce on that piece of wood before anyone else did :-D. I guess I could also blame it on auto-correct :-o

[Paul Engle]

Nice indeed, I named some of my work by what figure I saw in the wood...