Hello,
I've finished an a&C bookcase. It's QS whie oak that has been fumed with ammonia, a coat of oil and then 2 coats of shellac. I want to apply a coat of colored wax to fill the pores and give a darker tone. What is the best way to color paste waxes: aritist colors perhap? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
tks
Adam
Almost anything. I use artist's acrylics for epoxy, but for waxes I use ochre pigments (locally mined). They come in a range of colours from yellow to black (or even purple) and can be intermixed. Very stable too.
For a wax I use my usual beeswax & turpentine recipe. It's important to add a touch more ammonia if re-melting it to colour it, otherwise the ochre tends to settle out on cooling.
I don;t use this on oak (maybe I'll start doing it, depending on the timber) but I do like brown ochre in wax on ash, for semi-rustic stuff like Windsor chairs. It highlights the open grain of the growth rings nicely, but doesn't colour between the rings. I then use a clear wax with carnauba over the top.
I can't say it's the best way, but I've mixed burnt siena or VanDyke brown artist paint(oil based) with Johnson's paste wax and used it. And then there colored waxes available(i.g.
Larry
Wanna try show polish. . .
On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 06:59:22 -0400, "Adam Kropinski" pixelated:
Briwax and others make wax for dark woods, so go that route for waxing. But why fill the pores?
-- "Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein -=-=-
1) Because Stickley did.
2) Because you think it looks good.
a) It hides them, and makes the pore-less ray flake more prominent
b) it accentuates them (my rusticated ash)
What about universal colorants? Is there any way to verify the quality of the ingredients?
Thanks, Barry
The artist's response is to ask the manufacturers. If you Google, you can find lists that people have assembled.
It's also creating a nice trade in "boutique" pigments, guaranteed hand ground by virgin monks on the slopes of the Himalayas. With Afghanistan now being a bit more open to trade, the price of lapis lazuli has dropped somewhat too.
Gustav was clearly the sort of guy who'd do finishes the way he wanted, rather than the way that made money. I think Leopold would probably have value-engineered that step out.
OTOH, there's a lot of colour variation in GS product. It would be interesting to know accurately if they did change their processes.
These pieces are only 100 years old, which is pretty young for oak. There's 400 year oak furniture in town that's dark brown, and 800 year old in some of the old English houses that's black. Compare this to timber framing, where the 400 year stuff is already jet black. If you saw these beams, they're darkened for 1/2" surface depth.
Compared to that, Barnsley work that is contemporaneous with Stickley was finished to a lighter colour and is still light today.
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