Finishing serviceberry

[Mike Novak]

I have some of what I believe is serviceberry. It’s pretty light colored, with an interesting but subtle grain pattern. I haven’t been happy with anything I have finished it with. Shellac, tung, linseed, danish oil all seem to bring out the yellow tones and mute the grain pattern. I’d like to highlight the grain and bring in more red or brown to offset the yellowing.

I’m pretty sure water base poly would not bring out the yellow, but I don’t think it will do anything to highlight the grain or chatoyance. Plus, I’d like to stay with natural finishes.

Is there any treatment that will highlight the grain and bring out more of the browns or mute the yellow ? Ammonia fuming doesn’t seem to do anything. I’m wondering about vinegar and steel, or lye, etc.

Any ideas? Im nearly ready to start finishing another piece from this tree. (I’m not ready to start messing around with dyes yet. )

The picture is the last piece I made from this tree, finished with shellac.

TIA

 

[Marc Banka]

I think of penetrating finishes, oil base, or just oil when I want to increase contrast, pop the grain patterns. I use shellac when I want to keep the light woods as light as possible, while still getting some, not a lot of a contrast boost. Water base will just seal the wood, and not add much interest.

I have used a bit of ink in my finishes to alter the yellow, but that requires some thought and planning. Be sure of what you want and how the different densities will accept the ink to a greater or lesser amount.

Moving away from the finish chosen, and instead considering other ways to make the grain more interesting and understandable is to turn your next blank over. Put the pith at the bottom. Pith at the top, as you have yours really shows off the sapwood—pretty bland with no story to what grain there is, while minimizing and dividing the beautiful heartwood, relegating it to patches opposite each other. To a non turner (almost any audience other than turners) this makes no sense. Why these two darker areas? Which parts of the tree are these? Why two?

 

[Michael Anderson]

Marc gave a great answer. I will add that if you did not see an effect of ammonia, you will likely not see any effect with vinegar/steel. Both of those treatments rely on tannin. That said you could treat (or spot treat) the areas you want to darken/ebonize with a tannin tea solution (or similar), and then apply the vinegar/steel, but that will probably need quite a bit of experimentation to get right.

Hemp oil, in my experience, had the least yellowing effect of any oil I’ve tried. But it will still change the color of the sapwood a bit, especially with such a wide area. And I would guess that if you’re not satisfied with the yellowing via shellac, then you might not like hemp oil. Water based finish will likely be the only thing that won’t affect the sapwood.

You MIGHT try just treating the heartwood with something like polymerized linseed oil, so it will dry/cure faster than normal. Then, you can topcoat the heartwood with shellac (dewaxed, which I’m assuming you’re using—if not, make you’re own with super blonde flakes), and then you can finish coat everything with lacquer. That would give you the contrast you need, but you’ll need to be careful with application and drying times.

 

[Roger Wiegand]

With some combination of trans-tint dyes you can probably hit about any color tone you want. Adding some blue or purple will tone down the yellow. The soluble dyes are the best way I've found to pop grain patterns.

 

[Mike Novak]

Sounds like I will need to start experimenting with dyes. It’s too late to change grain orientation since I’m on the second turn. I’ll need to do some experimenting to get it right. I’ll post here when done.

 

[Doug Freeman]

I use WD Lockwood oil based dyes mixed into the oil or poly to accent grain patterns. It does require testing initially to get the right color and intensity.