I know this is kind of a short post, but this video was shot at the January meeting of the St. Petersburg Woodcrafter’s Guild. I was asked to do a quick presentation about my wood finishing regimen. I thought I would also post it here.
BTW – many thanks to Dave Knipfer of Maryland.. he’s the guy who taught me the method. You see, Dave, I did pay attention!
I make test boards like that for almost every project to determine if the stain and finish process I have in my head will come out the way I think it will. I make the test board before I start the project, but I take it one step further. After I make the board I cut the finished part in half and put one part in the sun and leave the other half in a dark corner of the shop. I work slowly on projects (father of 2 boys takes up a lot of shop time) by the time I’m ready to finish my project I look at the difference of the 2 pieces to see how the sun aged and darken the piece. Gives me an idea if the stain will turn to dark over time.
Good job Tom! I’d be nice if you could come out of your shell a bit though. That’s the second time I’ve heard about using shellac as a sealer in just the past couple weeks. I’ll have to try it on the next project.
Thanks Tom for the great tips!
Tom, the Polyurethane that you use, is it the kind that cleans up with soap and water or mineral spirits? I have a old can of poly that cleans up with water and I am wondering if it is going to mix well with boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits 🙂 . My guess is that I need to another trip to the big box store to get another can of poly.
Yeah, it’s oil based. Water won’t mix with the linseed oil…