I have asked a variant of this question in the past but thought I would ask it a bit more open-ended with a picture this time. Obviously it has not been scraped, sanded and prepared for finish yet. Table is walnut, center is waterfall bubinga veneer pressed onto an MDF substrate. My desire is to have a filled-pore finish and possibly introduce some BLO to accentuate the grain and figure but I would like to NOT muddy the inlay. The inlay is just laid on the top in this pic and it will be a border around the bubinga and not extend to the edges.
The piece won’t see much abuse and my thought was to fill the pores, get some oil into it somehow and French Polish the top with a few sprayed on coats of shellac elsewhere.
My questions:
1) How do I keep the inlays from getting “muddy” and dirty during all this. Some have suggested a coat of shellac carefully brushed on to protect it during the oiling and filling. Now that you can see a pic, do you think that is the best approach?
2) In terms of grain filler, what would you use here? I would like to keep the bubinga bright as well as the inlays so I have ruled out a dark grain filler on that part. However, I would like to keep the walnut dark so I was thinking a dark one there. I also want the inlays to be filled.
3) I was considering using the time-honored technique of BLO and pumice as a grain filler but that brought me back to the muddy inlays.
Meeting these goals definitely feels like a tall order. So, how would you finish it?
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