Suggestions for Finish

[John Nicholas]

I picked up a roughed cedar blank last night and turned it to finish sanding to 220 grit. I still need to reverse and remove the mounting. 9 inch diameter and 2.5 high.

What suggestions are there for a finish. I have used lacquer when I want some shine as well as Danish Oil and BLO. I am open on this one.

My wife wants to give this to my sister for Christmas. When she checked the bowl she thought it was great. An hour later, she told me not to bring the cedar around her again, she was reacting. She couldn't smell it at first. She did bring it up to her nose to sniff.

Would I be better to try to seal in the fragrance? If is oil based from the cedar is that a good idea? Would the best route be more of an oil finish.

 

[hockenbery]

Used to make lots of little cedar birdhouse ornaments. We didn't put any finish of them and didn't sand most of them.
They were not going to see any rough handling.

Cedar is soft and will easily dent if used unfinished.
If it is intended for functional use lots of coats of waterlox will build up a luster and add some durability to the surface.

Some cedar has a purple color. It will fade to brown over time. The time can be extended to many years by finishing with amorall - the automotive cleaner I don't think this is food safe.

Turning Cedar and mahogany gives me a stuffy head even using a power respirator helmet. Similar to a mild allergy like I get from oak pollen.
Being around the raw wood doesn't seem to bother me

Al

 

[gary rock]

John-

What ever finish you use on your Cedar piece, get ready for it will be real thirsty for a while until the pores in the wood are sealed. Have finish Cedar pieces with Danish Oil and high gloss wipe-on-poly. If you want to seal the wood so it won't produce an cedar odor use wipe-on-poly or waterlox. Many coats of the finish around 7 to 10 coats, sanded with worn out 400 grit paper or steel wool or artificial wool between coats to get to the final coat.

Gary

 

[Bill Boehme]

I was all set to turn a candlestick out of cedar today when it occurred to me what happens to my sinuses every time that I turn it -- and like Al, I also use a powered respirator. The problem is that there will be fine cedar dust all over the shop and I don't want to wear my respirator just to enter the shop.

If you want to put a finish on cedar, I suggest shellac at least for the initial coat. The resins in cedar can react with other types of finishes like polyurethane and cause it to become gummy or develop crazing.

 

[john lucas]

I personally don't think Cedar makes a good functional bowl other than maybe to hold candies or plastic fruit. It's just so soft. I would use a hard finish like Polyeurethane. With the few that I made I didn't have a problem with my old home brew finish which was a poly,tungoil mixture.
The colors change pretty dramatically when you apply a finish and will do so no matter what finish. I tried a bunch trying to retain that beautiful pink that comes straight off the lathe. I tried bleaching a bowl thinking that I could lighten the color and then when I applied the finish and it darkened it would be the color I wanted. It blew up right in front of me. Apparently the bleach penetrated so fast it started swelling the wood. Then areas where the bleach had not touched yet were still shrunk and the wood movement vs non movement broke my bowl into about a dozen pieces. I still plan to try this again some day but will soak the bowl in water first to swell everything at once, then apply the bleach.
I haven't tried this test with Cedar but did spend a fair amount of time playing with Box Elder which will fade very fast in UV light. I tried about a Dozen UV inhibitors to see if any of them would work. Armour all was one of them. Non of them worked when the wood was subjected to direct sunlight for just one day. The only one that worked at all was Spar Varnish but it imparts such a dark orange color to everything that it simply wasn't a choice for my turned wood. You can buy lacquer with UV inhibitor. It worked as well as anything. Pieces that are stored inside and not subjected to direct light will last a long time and not fade a lot with this product. I used Krylon.
I have not tried this product but may look at getting some for a new round of tests.
http://www.artchemicals.com/Waxes_Sealers_Lacquer_s/136.htm

 

[Brian McInturff]

Try acrylic. I've still got a beautiful FBE bowl I made about 10 years ago and it gets subjected to sunlight through the window every day. Same Acrylic they sell to the higher end cabinet shops for custom kitchen cabinets.

 

[Dean Center]

In my experience, it seems like maybe the heat from sanding/finishing/buffing accelerates the browning. On pens and reel seat inserts, I use CA finish on Rocky Mountain Juniper (mostly referred to as 'cedar' and looks just like Eastern Red/Aromatic Cedar) and this seems to maintain the color as long as I don't polish with much pressure.

Some RMJ I have seen had the light colored part of the wood take on a bright yellow color and the reddish colored wood become bright red-purple, which I find unpleasant. This has mostly been on other people's work, so I don't really know the cause, but I have assumed it was from a 'yellowing' finish. Sorry not to have good evidence based data on this.