Very, very nice. To me, this is the perfect look for a finish. (not to mention you're working with some nice wood)
You mentioned that you use a mixture of Pure Tung Oil & mineral spirits and then wax at the end. Would you mind sharing your steps and process? i.e number of coats, percent pure tung oil & percent mineral spirits, drying time between coats, any wet sanding between coats or just at the end prior to waxing, etc.
I just started a stock with Pure Tung Oil (Lee Valley) so I am very curious because I am after exactly the look in your pictures. So far I have; 1) sanded the stock to #400 2) applied one coat of a 50/50 Tung oil/mineral spirits mix, let sit for 30 minutes and wiped off 3) wiped off any seeking during the first day or two until there was no more. It as been drying for one week now and is very smooth to the touch.
My current plan is to use Renaissance wax at the end. (my understanding is that Lee Valley Conservators wax is the same)
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
That came from 3 book matched slabs from walnut bole - they started out at about 4' x 3' (ish) chaotic grain but if you can find the right spots where it flows it's really (REALLY) nice.
Anyway, I'll try to summarize, pretty much all my measuring is "by eye":
> Fill pores, I use a filler if needed - work mostly with curly maple, but it rarely needs a filler of any kind. (I use the Lee Valley water based stuff link in previous post)
> I generally scrape instead of sanding, finest surface you can get. (though sometimes you have to sand, a chaotic grain structure will fight your scrapers)
> Whiskering, less if scraping, more if sanding, required for Maple, Walnut is a little more forgiving.
> Stain, dye or chemical colouring (Ferric nitrate/aqua fortis), again mostly water based dyes & AF with curly maple, can't actually remember the last time I used stain! (dyes accentuate figure, stains will hide it, use a stain when wood needs to look like some other species)
> 50/50 Tung to mineral spirits for fist application
> 75/25 Tung to mineral for the second
> 100% Tung till the stock stops soaking it up (when dry spots stop appearing usually 1 or 2 applications, occasionally 3 - mostly determined by the porosity of the wood) slather it on, let it sit 10/15/30 minutes then scrub the excess off with some linen cloth.
AND/OR
> Poly tung or poly/sealer blend ~ depends on how it's to get used and by whom, basically if the end user will have trouble maintaining a complete wax finish, it gets some kind of polymer... usually tung, but I have used Tru-oil as well.
> Wax, pure oil or poly, it gets a wax finish and the metal as well. (well the appropriate parts of the metal) Wax really helps the look and protection of browned parts as well - Mother's car paste wax does nicely for metal.
Drying time between, completely depends on humidity, generally I won't apply more oil within 48 hours, more time as the oil mix gets thicker. (sometimes up to a week or more!)
No sanding or steel wool in between either, there should be nothing left on the surface of the stock to sand, if you do sand a finish, especially with colour (stain or dye) you risk thin spots that will show up as blotches, without colour, then the finish penetration will (probably) be uneven.
So my overall approach is,
- sanding/scraping/pore filling is done "as" preparation for colour and finish
- colour is applied before finish (and sometimes as part ~ depending on the product)
- finish is determined by end use and who is using it. (I'm just as likely to spar varnish a bush gun or shellac a safe queen
)
So that's my way ... there must be 1000's of different ways and 1000's of products, a lot of it is preference.
I do however strongly suggest everyone give cabinet scrapers a try (at least once) - you will be amazed at the finish quality!
