{"id":598,"date":"2010-01-26T02:46:45","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T07:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=598"},"modified":"2013-04-19T23:27:08","modified_gmt":"2013-04-20T04:27:08","slug":"choose-a-finish-at-the-start-3-examples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/26\/choose-a-finish-at-the-start-3-examples\/","title":{"rendered":"Choose a finish at the start: 3 examples"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Here are examples to illustrate the value of considering the finish in the design stage of a project<\/strong>, as discussed in an earlier post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Note: The appearance of these samples<\/strong> is influenced by many factors including the lighting on the objects when I photographed them, the properties of my camera, image processing for presenting on the internet, your monitor, your eyes, and your brain\u2019s visual processing. I tried to adjust the images, including the colors\u2019 hue, saturation, and brightness, to make them look to me, on my monitor, as close as possible to how the actual pieces look to me in the room.]<\/p>\n

In the piece pictured above<\/strong>, I wanted to keep the spalted maple<\/strong> close to its unfinished appearance so I used water base poly-acrylic. Oil would have darkened\u00a0and blotched the light color and ruined the contrast of the black-line spalting. The mahogany<\/strong> has a padded blonde shellac finish (applied to most\u00a0areas before assembly)\u00a0with wax over it. The plain mahogany\u00a0sets off\u00a0the spalted maple and has its own delicate sheen which also enhances the\u00a0play of light on the beading. Water base would have made it look lifeless. The Macassar ebony<\/strong> handle gets an accented sheen from wiping varnish and coordinates with the black spalt lines.\u00a0No single finish would have done justice to this group of woods. This has to be tested and worked out early in the project.<\/p>\n

When finishing, I want to keep,\u00a0not kill,\u00a0the good qualities the wood already has<\/strong>. Pear has a dignified,\u00a0almost precious aura. The sample of unusually dense German pear<\/strong> below, unfinished in the center section,\u00a0looks greasy and artificial to my eye when oiled as on the left side. The water base finish on the right\u00a0is just enough to bring\u00a0out the curl and protect the wood without overwhelming it.\u00a0 No finish might\u00a0look best but, practically, dirt and grime might eventually detract from\u00a0the appearance of handled parts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Port Orford cedar<\/a>, especially when quartersawn, has a meditative, simple beauty<\/strong> that is difficult to capture in a photograph. When planning this species into a project, consider not only it appearance but its pleasant,\u00a0spicy aroma. For panels in the interior back of a cabinet, for example,\u00a0it is best left alone after it is smoothed with a hand plane.\u00a0For parts that will receive wear,\u00a0the thin water base poly-acrylic on the left is barely different in\u00a0color from the unfinished middle section. The oil-varnish on the right section is brutal – looks like it came out of a 1950s barber shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In all of this, opinions will vary. The main thing is to decide what you<\/em> are trying to achieve in a project and make the finish part of that as you design<\/strong>, not an anxiety-provoking puzzle to consider after the piece is built when, teetering on disappointment, you might finish yourself into a corner.<\/p>\n

In an upcoming post<\/strong>, I\u2019ll present more samples including: pop the figure but not too much, less can be more, and consider the long term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are examples to illustrate the value of considering the finish in the design stage of a project, as discussed in an earlier post. [Note: The appearance of these samples is influenced by many factors including the lighting on the objects when I photographed them, the properties of my camera, image processing for presenting on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wood","tag-choose-a-finish-at-the-start-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2303,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/2303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}