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Old 23rd Aug 2018, 11:59 am   #1
Diabolical Artificer
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Default Good finish for Sycamore?

I've built a couple of wooded boxes for two monoblocks out of some sycamore I had, it's been a hard slog as they were in 2 1/2" thick rough sawn planks, hard going with just a small jack plane.


Anyhoo, I'm now at the point of finishing, I've tried Danish Oil and Finishing Oil and tried a few stains I had lying around. Havn't tried vanish and am reticent to use a brush on finish as very good results are hard to obtain, so...

What finish would you recommend? Am after something maybe satin finish which will bring out the grain (see pics) but also darken the wood a tad.

Andy.
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Old 23rd Aug 2018, 1:22 pm   #2
David G4EBT
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

The 'boxes' look nice Andy, and deserve the term 'cabinets'!

I can only comment from a woodturning perspective, where the standard method of finishing is to first apply cellulose sanding sealer with a cloth, which seals the grain and stabilises the fibres for sanding. It dries in minutes and the best medium for sanding is Abronet mesh which you can but in packs of ten strips in a range of grits up to 1,000. If the surface of the wood is already quite smooth, 320 or 400 would be a good choice. (Sanding only with the grain of course). That prepares the wood for a final finish coat of choice. (You can also get shellac sanding sealer, but it takes longer to dry).

As to the final finish, if you don't want it too glossy, clear satin acrylic aerosol lacquer would be a good choice. The wood will darken very slightly, but not much. If you want an idea how much, if you wet your finger and rub it on the wood, that's about how much. The grain of sycamore is quite bland unless its ripple or 'fiddle-back' sycamore, which occurs as the tree grows and is caused by high winds in exposed areas, which stresses the tree.

The only way to darken it further would be to apply a lightish stain before applying sanding sealer, but you'd need to check it first on a sample because once it's on, you can't take it off. If you darken sycamore it will look more like cherry.

Chestnut products are pretty well standard for many cabinet makers and woodturners.

Here's their sanding sealer:

https://chestnutproducts.co.uk/produ...anding-sealer/

Here's their acrylic satin lacquer:

https://chestnutproducts.co.uk/produ...satin-lacquer/

Here's a source of Abronet in a range of grades:

https://www.toolpost.co.uk/pages/Abr...t/abranet.html

To give you some idea what satin acrylic lacquer looks like, I've attached a couple of bowls that I've turned and finished with sanding sealer/satin acrylic.

The first one is in ripple sycamore, the second in London plane. (Plane & sycamore are the same family -'Platanus' and are known as sycamore in North America).

Hope that might help a bit.
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Old 23rd Aug 2018, 4:29 pm   #3
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

David,

That London plane bowl, with the shoulders - I'm sure there's a more proper descriptor - looks absolutely fantastic, a beautiful piece.

Regards,
Richard
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Old 23rd Aug 2018, 5:21 pm   #4
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Try this Andy, its good stuff. You rub on, its a little bit of work(keep you warm), but well worth it. Bring out the grain and wont make it dark, it will bring that sycamore up lovely

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Langlow-Pat.../dp/B002WI48OM

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Old 23rd Aug 2018, 6:20 pm   #5
stevehertz
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

I personally would recommend Wilko Quick Dry Varnish. It goes on a with a brush like applying cream and it self levels like nothing you have seen before. It is not sticky at all and does not pull on the brush like old fashioned varnishes. It is touch dry within an hour, so you can get multiple coats on in a single day. It comes in matt, satin and gloss and in different wood colours.

The photo shows a receiver that I re veneered and finished with said coating. I can't recommend it enough having struggled with conventional varnishes and finishes in the past. It is my 'go to' finish now for most wooden items. Easy to use and a great finish - what more do you need?!
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Old 24th Aug 2018, 6:27 am   #6
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Thanks David, some good advice and links there. As regards sanding sealer, why do you use it? I've heard of grain sealer, same thing? I was going to leave the box with the planed finish, which can be excellent, took me hours ( makes that weeks) to get the wood square and the finish spot on, but there are some blemishes on some sides. I had one side with dodgy grain, looks quarter sawn or the outside of the tree.

BTW, I have a few big dinks on this side I refered to, plane dug in, any tips on filling? I know about sawdust/PVA mix but don't think this will do here. Will take a pic late. I bought some filler at a local shop, but local supplies are limited, this is bright white!

Yep, Euro Sycamore = Acer Pseudoplatanus, a type of maple, Amer Sycamore a type of plane tree. BTW, as an aside, why does everyone hate Sycamore, because they are easily self seaded in garden's or because of the aphid sticky gunk?

The Abronet looks good, thanks for the excellent links David.

The bowl with shoulders does look well, quarter sawn?

The patina wax poppydog, does it stain?

Steve, that sounds good stuff, normal varnish is a bit dire.

Thanks for all the tips lads, Andy.
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Old 24th Aug 2018, 8:20 am   #7
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Hello Andy, not quite sure why they describe it as a wax, its really a heavy sticky polyurethane type jelly. It will slightly darken your wood as will any other finish you apply, its a amber/ yellow colour I suppose to mimic aged timber, it does it very well. I have done all my wood (pine) with it in my sitting room, very hard work but worth it.
With regards to the filler, whatever you fill it with, once you apply your finish, you will always see it. To me, stained/varnished filler always looks like end grain, not a good look
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Old 24th Aug 2018, 9:56 am   #8
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Sanding sealer is basically lacquer, which contains tiny grains of zinc stearate – a soapy substance that makes the sealer easier to sand. It seals the wood and raises the grain so that rather than the soft hairy fibres being bent over when sanding they’re cut off (‘de-nibbed’) and the zinc stearite helps to minimise clogging of the abrasive paper. It sands back well to a smooth finish and only one coat is needed. When using successive different grits – say 180,220, 340, it’s important to carefully wipe off the dust or grains of grit will be left behind and will be wiped back and forth leaving score marks.

Irrelevant to us, but zinc stearite is widely used in cosmetics such as mascara and lipstick as a lubricant.

If you want to stain the wood, you have to do it before applying sanding sealer. You can just apply pastewax directly onto sanding sealer, or you can use a top coat finish first, such as the aerosol acrylic lacquer I mentioned earlier or whatever you prefer.

As to filling the dug-in blemishes, if they're in a noticeable position there isn't anything much that will conceal them. Really, when your planing wood with interlocking grain - mahogany is among the worst - you get a much better finish with a power planer because the two blades are whizzing round at thousands of revs/min and each blade only takes off maybe 1mm of wood, so won't pull out chunks. You can then finish with an orbital sander and finally, hand sanding.

I appreciate that's not much consolation at this stage Andy, and you may not possess either a power planer or orbital sander. It's very difficult to get a filler to exactly match the timber as even if the colour match is reasonable, the filler doesn't have the grain characteristics of the timber. Really, as hobbyists, we're DIYers aspring to be cabinet makers!

As to the grain of the square edged bowl, I mustn't drift too far off topic as this isn't a woodturning forum, but I've attached a picture below of the 6" square 3" thick blank from which I turned the bowl. Plane with that pattern of grain is sometimes called 'lacewood' for fairly obvious reasons. The challenge with woodturing is that as the blank rotates, the gouge has to cope alternately with end grain and cross grain, twice with each rev, so it calls for sharp tools and a light touch. That bowl was turned at 2,000 RPM at which speed, the tips of the square are passing the gouge at roughly 66ft per second. When the square is turned down to 5mm thick, it becomes almost invisible - it's just a 'ghost' so it's very easy to catch a corner and knock it off. (or more drastically, to catch a finger and knock it off!).

(The bowl was polished with pastewax).

I hope that's of interest, but if we go any further down that route, we can rightly expect the mods to put a stop to it.

Good luck with the cabinet Andy, whatever you try.
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Old 24th Aug 2018, 12:04 pm   #9
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diabolical Artificer View Post
I had one side with dodgy grain, looks quarter sawn or the outside of the tree.

Andy.
Andy, if it's home grown Sycamore sometimes the grain can be a bit tricky, at least down in this part of the country, I used to find that with reaction wood in Sycamore, sometimes it might be a mild case of the ripples, strong ripples can be worth a bit more money, I'm not a plant scientist but some say it's down to tree genetics. I found that tension wood used to fluff up or tear when planning/sanding if not careful.

I used to mill Sycamore straight from the log amongst other species for a living, most of the Sycamore logs I did had reaction wood in the form of tension wood, tension wood is the opposite to compression wood (obviously) tension wood is often found in hardwoods, compression wood is often found in softwoods, both types are there to in effect reinforce the tree where its been grown in circumstances less than ideal, it often means the tree has taken on a leaning habit at some point, tension wood grows on the opposite side of the lean to reinforce that side of the tree, compression wood grows on the side of the lean to reinforce that side, if you've ever ripped any boards down and found that it opens into an exaggerated curved "V" as it exits the blade then that's a sign that tension wood might be present, on the other hand if it nips up either when passing through the blade or after it exits then that's a sign that compression wood is present.

Sawing stuff on a circular saw that has compression wood can be dangerous, in general, how dangerous depends on the weight of the wood being sawn and the diameter of the saw blade, if it nips up on the blade past the blades centre but before the knife it can kick back crankshaft style, the worst I had was a 12 foot larch log that had compression wood, the kickback was substantial to say the least, if it gets past the riving knife then any time after that the whole length of compression wood (if it's not restrained ) can suddenly spring off as it takes the form of a bow, some times violently!

Compression wood can be recognized by it's high lignin content, it will show up as darker than normal timber growth on clean end grain and on the surface by its darker colour, it can however have a very smooth sawn edge due to the lignins presence.

Tension wood has particular dangers for the unexperienced "tree feller" (listen up DIY types) they often think its like felling a normal tree...gob cut (the notch/wedge) then the felling cut from the back to the hinge, the danger is "Barber Chair" which can be fatal, the operative in doing a normal felling cut has severed the tension wood as part of the felling cut process and it was that tension wood that in effect was holding the tree up! The result is the tree uncontrollably splits right up and falls in a totally uncontrolled/unpredictable way, some times several tons of it....Bad news...The felling cut should start at the hinge and be worked progressively back to the holding wood (the tension wood)

Drying Sycamore boards the traditional way usually meant end racking rather than stickers, sometimes care is needed with that especially with wide boards due to the moisture gradient when drying.

Have fun.

Lawrence.
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Old 25th Aug 2018, 4:38 am   #10
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Thanks Lawrence, I didn’t know any of that. I have cut down many trees, mainly eucalyptus at my previous house in Norfolk.

Here in Littlehampton close to the sea there are many trees that have a pronounced lean. Owned presumably by the local authority there are no plans to cut them down as far as I know but could be worth watching if they do.

Jim
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Old 25th Aug 2018, 6:56 am   #11
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Default Re: Good finish for Sycamore?

Thanks again David, am going to experiment on some scraps.

Have felled a few trees Lawrence with a chainsaw and had a few kickbacks, scared the c*** out of me, prefer to fell with an axe and crosscut to be honest. I knew there was tension in overhanging branches, the bottom being under compression the top under tension from when I worked with a tree surgeon, but he did all the difficult stuff.

It's actually quite tricky sometimes sussing out the grain in some bits of wood, this last plank of sycamore being a case in point, I'll plane it up and take some pics, see what you think.

Thanks again all, Andy.
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