Arts & Crafts Finish Advice Needed

[brian roth]

I'm trying to use the Jeff Jewitt Arts & Crafts finish process on some white oak, as outlined in FWW (Issue with the Cherry Shaker Clock om the cover)

Process is a dye stain to add color, followed by pigment stain to color the pores.

I used transtint reddish brown for the dye, and Watco dark walnut for the pigment (it contains the required gilsonite, or asphaltum)

My problem is the pores aren't taking the dark color, it's as if they are coated in Watco-repelling teflon. Everything is colored correctly except the pores! Simalar results were obtained with Minwax dark walnut.

I can think of a few things to try next:

Try some gel stain to color the pores.

Try some homemade gilsonite (roofing cement & mineral spirits)

Use dark colored wax.

Any other ideas??? (Oh yeah, I'm doing this all on scrap for now)

[Andy Dingley]

Roofing bitumen isn't gilsonite. This is a somewhat unpredictable stain at the best of times (it's very dilution sensitive) and it's worth buying some real gilsonite or asphaltum (from Liberon), rather than trying to use roofing grade stuff. You _can_ use roofer's bitumen, you just can't control it. Make sure it's _all_ dissolved too, otherwise you can find it starts getting darker and darker while you're working with it!

Roofing bitumen also doesn't come in packages less than about 20kg. We've spent since early Summer trying to invent uses for the rest of a sackful ! Pretty good fun though - we've made repoussed steel, very slow waterclocks, waterproofed steel vases, vampire-detecting mirrors...

[Andy Dingley]

White oak - go straight for ammonia. It's not only the _right_ thing to do, it's also easier than fooling about with dyes and stains.

[bridger]

over here you can buy the roofing stuff in small quantities for repairs. I've even seen it in caulking gun tubes.

[Mike S.]

If you have a Rockler store nearby go pick yourself up a can of their mission stain. I used it on some items I built that should show up in abpw.

[Swingman]

Good advice ... wish I'd followed it on my own earlier, keeper pieces. It's nicer when your 'collection' looks like it comes from the same planet.

[JGS]

[Eag111]

I've had very good results following Jeff's recipe on QS white oak using McCloskey Tungseal Walnut...

[Jim Polaski]

And remember that you don't apply the ammonia to the wood. You *fume* the wood with ammonia.

Also, ever seen the mission style furniture at Renovation Hardware? They use their own "maple" stain that's sold in the store. The appearance is quite nice. I'd use that and then put 3-5 coats of wiped on Flecto Varithane's "Natural Oil"...but let each coat dry and "polish" the finish lightly inbetween coats with 600 W&D and tack cloth. Also, make sure you polish the wood with the 600 before applying the first coat too.

[Bill Wallace]

Brian,

What you are seeing is a sort of surface tension problem. Oak (especially Red but also White) is notorious for this. You stain and it looks beautiful. Howver once it dries you see lots of white poking through. This is less noticable when you use natural or honey oak type colors but real evident when you use dark colors.

What is happening is the stain is creating a bubble or sheet that sits across the top of two grain ridges without actually getting down into the valley. As the stain dries the bubble pops.

You can beat this by using a stiff brush and really gringing the stain into the grain. Even a soft brush will do it but will get destroyed in the grinding process..

[patrick conroy]

Brian - I'm about a week away from trying this very finish. Did you find a solution?

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:03:59 GMT, patrick conroy calmly ranted:

DAGS on Andy Dingley's review of that article and the finish, then rethink your trial. ;)

-- Like they say, 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. ------------------------------------------------------

Lawyer-free Website Development

[brian roth]

I went and got some McCloskey's (valspar customer service e-mail me a list of retailers). Much better results. Much thicker stain. Must be chock full of Gilsonite....

[Andy Dingley]

Oh, the finish is fine - I just don't like staining things.

[patrick conroy]

Well I went ahead and tried some combo's this morning. I see what Jewitt was talking about.

[patrick conroy]

So I had an hour this morning to try some variations. I had several flavors of water based aniline dye (JE Moser powerded brand) and a several cans of stain left around (A couple of Bartley's Gel, and a Minwhacks.)

I was able to acheive the same results he outlined -- the dye colored my medullary ray flecks and then the followup stain did indeed accentuate the pores.

I left the test pieces at 180 grit - I didn't go down any farther.

The degree of fleck dying was independent of the dye color, but I found the darker/redder dyes more appealing and apparant.

Likewise -- all pigment stains filled the pores, but the darker ones were more striking.

Not an endorsement of the approach - dying and staining over fuming, just saying I'm seeing what Jewitt was talking about in the article.

Fuming is not an option for me, now. I've got a white/oak and mahogany piece that I'm going to dye dark for a couple of (questionable) reasons. So I'm going to try this. I'll likely post pix to ABPW and let group decide whether they find it a pleasing finish or not...