Oak with Oil Based Stain and CA Finish

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Fine Engineer

Fine Engineer

Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2021
Messages
300
Location
Carson City, NV
IMG_3871.JPG

So this is new for me, and I haven't seen this discussed here, so I thought I'd document what I'm doing.
I have a commission to make three pens and use an arm from a Morris chair for the wood. Bare oak would just look like new wood, and not be very interesting, so I wanted to try and match the patina of the source wood. Dark oak and even walnut stain were too light, and didn't highlight the dark grain of the original wood, so I used ebony stain which worked very well. After applying the stain and letting it dry for about 15 minutes before wiping it off, I let it dry overnight. Then I lightly sanded the blanks with 400 grit sandpaper, then with fine micromesh. This lightened up the surface wood and added contrast to the grain. As you can see, the color match is pretty close.
Then to help the CA adhere to the wood, I used two coats of dewaxed shellac (spray on). Letting that dry for an hour or two, I then used the fine micromesh to knock off the high spots and make the wood smoother. After that, I applied about 5 coats of CA, then finished that with the wet sanding pads down to 12,000 grit. So far I'm very happy with the results. I have not seen any reaction with the shellac, or the CA, but I will wait a day or so before turning the final parts to see if there is any change in clarity, cloudiness, or other possible defects that may arise.

By the way, I'm also going to frame this logo section of the original wood as it is just too cool to toss.

Jeff
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Honest question here because what I don't know about penmaking would fit through the eye of a needle and still allow several elephants to walk abreast through the same eye.

Why would you need shellac to help CA adhere to the wood?
 
Shellac is used by some to fill the holes on open pore woods with one or two coats and dries rather quickly. Others use thick or medium CA. But de-waxed shellac does the same, and in some cases shellac does better - more specifically on oily woods as a base coat. Shellac is not as water proof as oil based finishes. As an initial coat to fill pores, CA, and other finishes will adhere to the shellac well.

What you are doing sounds good to me.
 
bugradx2 said:
Honest question here because what I don't know about penmaking would fit through the eye of a needle and still allow several elephants to walk abreast through the same eye.

Why would you need shellac to help CA adhere to the wood?
Click to expand...
The shellac works kind of as a primer or a barrier coat. The shellac adheres to the wood with the oil based stain, and in turn the CA adheres to the shellac. I was concerned about putting CA directly on the oil based stain as it may separate over time. This may be overkill, but I don't have the years of knowledge to draw on as to what definitely works and what doesn't.
 
Fine Engineer said:
The shellac works kind of as a primer or a barrier coat. The shellac adheres to the wood with the oil based stain, and in turn the CA adheres to the shellac. I was concerned about putting CA directly on the oil based stain as it may separate over time. This may be overkill, but I don't have the years of knowledge to draw on as to what definitely works and what doesn't.
Click to expand...
Got it. Thanks for sharing. I've used CA over dye but haven't tried it over oil based stain.
 
Finish update; I'm thinking that the shellac is not a good way to go. I just finished 3 pens, and had a complete failure on one of them. I saw a chip on the edge of the pen barrel, so used a pick to see how far the weakness went, and ultimately was able to pick all of the final finish off. It looked like the CA adhered to the shellac, but the shellac wasn't bonded to the stained wood.

So I sanded the barrel down then re-stained it with the ebony stain and let it dry for about 18 hours. I then wiped it with denatured alcohol and applied the CA directly to the stained wood. It seemed to work just as well as with plain wood. So the jury is still out as to the best way to finish stained wood.
 
Fine Engineer said:
Finish update; I'm thinking that the shellac is not a good way to go. I just finished 3 pens, and had a complete failure on one of them. I saw a chip on the edge of the pen barrel, so used a pick to see how far the weakness went, and ultimately was able to pick all of the final finish off. It looked like the CA adhered to the shellac, but the shellac wasn't bonded to the stained wood.

So I sanded the barrel down then re-stained it with the ebony stain and let it dry for about 18 hours. I then wiped it with denatured alcohol and applied the CA directly to the stained wood. It seemed to work just as well as with plain wood. So the jury is still out as to the best way to finish staine
Click to expand...

The more I think about this, if the stain has had 18 hours to dry I would probably just go directly with the CA.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom