Finishing Idea - any tried it?

[Tillius]

I was playing around with different finishing techniques and products.

I've built a small table out of pine, just to practice, so it's not really important. I stained it with a light red oak stain and it looks pretty nice. I now want to seal it. I got to thinking and I have used both polyester and epoxy resins when sealing plywood stitch and glue boats, and they've both worked pretty well. I'm wondering how it would work if I sealed the entire table in polyester resin? The stuff's pretty strong and would definitely lock the woods moisture content, so it should keep movement to a minimum, right?

anyone tried anything similar?

tillius

[Traves W. Coppock]

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 20:18:09 -0500, Tillius Crawled out of the shop and said. . .:

im not sure about the characteristics of polyester resin, but in my experience, NOTHING short of encasing wood in a block of acrylic will "lock" in the moisture content. the stuff breaths, and i doubt it can be stopped from doing so.

Traves

[Michael Daly]

Polyester resins aren't waterproof and absorb water (one reason why vinylester resins are more common in boats).. Epoxy would be better.

Mike

[Groggy]

That may change soon Traves. There is some interesting work being done with microwave technology. Apparently the wood is cooked, then a vacuum draws sealer or other compounds into the wood. The options are exciting more than a few scholars at present.

Greg

[Traves W. Coppock]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 11:55:31 GMT, "Groggy" Crawled out of the shop and said. . .:

now THAT, is interesting. might make alot of things easier to do. . . thanks for the heads up Greg!

Traves