Hi Group,
Looking for suggestion for the type of finish to use on cocobolo. I know it's quite full of natural oils and acetone should be used first.What about after the acetone? The bowl will be merely ornamental (hopefully!) and won't come into contact with food.
Thanks for any help.
Jay in NH
no use using acetone on it. You can use a oil and wax. You can use shellac. If you want to sue a poly type finish use a spit coat of shellac first.
As cocobolo is a dark wood I'd be leery of adding more colour to it so....instead of the "usual" BLO (Boiled Linseed Oil), I'd be tempted to see if you can find a small container of "raw" tung oil. Mix this with turpentine and a good (spar?) varnish in ratios starting at 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Test it. If it's too orange, drop the varnish content and increase the tung oil. If it's not orange enough, go the other way.
Another finish you may wish to try is simple shellac. With flakes there are a bunch of "colours" you can mix (blonde to garnet) or if you choose, you can simply pick up a can of Zinsser Seal Coat from the store and use it. Thin the first coat 50/50 with denatured alcohol and apply. Let it dry, scrub off the raised grain with 220. apply a full strength coat, scrub off the fuzzies again and then start building coats until you get it looking like you want to.
As for acetone first, I'd probably not bother. True you should do this prior to gluing, but not finishing as it's redundant (remove oil from the surface so it will take an oil finish.....?)
Best of luck Rob
what kinda of poly --water or oil based ? I was thinking of doing poly over shellac on a recent project, but the poly (yeah it was minwax) said not to use it over a shellac coating (it was oil poly)
Long ago and not to far away I was in a local wood store in Salem Or. and one of the workers was leaving for the day. He had a cocobolo board under his arm. It had been planed but the edges were still with some bark. It was fantastic looking, so I had to ask "watch ya gonna do with that?" he said "I'm gonna put two screw eyes in it and hang it on a wall." looking at the wood I had to agree it was a good idea.
Bob making sawdust in Salem
On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 14:50:45 GMT, Nova pixelated:
Yeah, 6 or 8 coats so you can get that really neato plasticky look! (...while the rest of the tree rolls over in its grave.)
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