FWW furniture building contest

[SonomaProducts.com]

Has anyone decided to take part in the FWW furniture building contest?

If your not familiar the rules are pretty basic. Must be Maple. Should be built from one 10in x 10ft x 8/4 piece or not more than 17bf of separate boards. Can be curly, birdseye, hard or soft but only Maple. It can be dyed and stained.

I wish it was a wood I had better luck with finishing. I just can't feature that stark white clean lacquer on Maple thing. I make butcher tops but very few whole Maple pieces ever. I guess it's time to start doing some sketches and learning how to get some color and character into that stuff if I want to win.

BW

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

Use tiger and dye it:

[RayV]

Water-based 'stain' works fairly well but doesn't penetrate more than the thickness of a wisp of smoke so it is tough to buff out between finish coats.

Even better is following up the dye with BLO to give the grain depth. But I agree it is a PITA.

Good luck, you'll have to let me know if you win cause I don't subscribe yet.