Help finishing elm

[Ed_McDonnell]

I just turned a piece of American Elm. This is a really rare wood here in South Florida. I was planning on doing some carving embellishments, but the wood is so beautiful that I abandoned my plan to carve it.

It's got nice waterfall curl in places and very interesting grain patterns everywhere. The sapwood is a very light cream color and contrasts nicely with the light brown / rose colored heartwood.

I would normally use an oil (BLO , Tung) to pop the grain before finishing with poly, but I don't want to turn the sapwood yellow. I know that water based finishes won't yellow, but I don't have enough experience with them to feel confident that they will highlight the grain. I don't have any extra elm to experiment with finishes, so it will be a one shot proposition.

Any recommendations on finishes for elm (preferrably high gloss) that will highlight grain while preserving the natural color of the sapwood?

Ed

 

[Rob Wallace]

Lacquer or Water-based Poly....

Ed:

I recently turned several elm pieces (still one in the shop being sprayed with water-based poly right now...)

For the most part, I typically use ultra-blonde shellac 1# cut) as a sanding sealer after sanding bare wood to 600, and then cut the shellac back to wood with 240 through 600-1000 after a 00 steel wool flattening/excess shellac removal.

I then usually apply several coats of sprayed lacquer (pre-cat) which produces an excellent glossy finish.... In most cases (but not all) it seals up the earlywood pores to give a fairly smooth surface.

In the winter I need to shift to sprayed water-based poly (I use General Fiinishes High Performance gloss polyurethane), and it finishes just about as nicely as the lacquer.

I agree that elm is a beautiful wood! (These pieces sell quickly...)

YMMV...

Rob Wallace

 

[MichaelMouse]

I've liked the result of Minwax Wipe-on Poly. You use only a couple of coats, so you don't build a surface finish, and the oil seems to be soy, so it doesn't carry much color. Couple of elm up in my album. The bowl is wipe-on, the end-grain dish shellac.

Here's another from the bowl log with wipe-on.

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Rob & Michael - Thanks for the responses.

I decided to try Rob's approach using shellac and then water based poly, keeping in mind his warning that my MMV. As it turns out, my MM did in fact V!!

I use shellac on rosewood to seal before finishing and I've learned to always wipe down the heartwood with alcohol first to avoid color transfer to the white sapwood. Never occurred to me that I might have to do the same thing with elm. Would have been easy to check if I had thought about it. But why think when you can just rush right in and act. The shellac (alcohol actually) transferred a lot of red from the heartwood to the sapwood. The red streaks looked kind of neat, but I really wanted the white sapwood.

Broke out the sandpaper and sanded it all off. That's enough fun for one day. I'll give finishing another go tomorrow.

I looked at the pieces in Michaels gallery and the elm I have sure looks a lot different. I'll post a picture when finished.

Ed

 

[Ken Grunke]

Too late now, but I was going to suggest the Minwax wipe-on poly also. No reason to start with the oil, use the poly from start to finish. Give it as many coats as it needs until it stops soaking in, but don't try building up coats like you would with lacquer. Let it cure a couple days or more, then sand lightly with 600 or 800 grit and buff with a muslin wheel and white diamond polishing compound, or the Beall system. That's my basic routine for the majority of my turnings.

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Thanks Ken - I've used wipe-on poly quite a bit for finishing, but I've always used an oil first to highlight the grain.

I'll have to experiment with some of my more common woods. I'll make two similar turnings, try skippng the oil on one of them and see how it looks.

Ed

 

[Ken Grunke]

My apologies for "preaching to the choir", Ed
I've never used BLO under a hardening finish, always figured it would affect the bond being a non-hardening finish. Maybe I'm missing something worth trying.

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Ken - I've never had adhesion problems with the BLO. I have found some woods that it darkens too much and I've used tung oil on them, but it never occurred to me to skip the oil completely. It sure makes curly grain really pop.

The one thing I dislike about the oil is the way sandpaper clogs if I decide to do some more work anywhere on the piece after oiling. If I can get the same results without the oil, I'm all for it. I'm willing to try anything once.

Ed

 

[Bob Salvetti]

Hey Ed - how about mineral oil ?

Bob

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Hi Bob. Glad you found your way to the forum.

I've used mineral oil for wet sandng film finishes but I've not tried it to highlight the grain under a film finish. BLO, Tung and walnut will all harden eventually, but I don't think mineral oil will. I'm not sure I would be comfortable using it under a film finish, but I haven't tried it so my opinion isn't worth much here.

Ed

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Here's the elm.

This is the strangest wood I've ever worked with. Some of the heartwood seems to change color from dark to light and back for no reason (at least none I can figure out). As I said above, it sure looks a lot different than the elm pictures I've looked at in the gallery. Must be something it got from the florida soil / climate / whatever.

I've inserted a picture. The heartwood on the right is much lighter right now (it's not the lighting in the photo) than the heartwood on the left. In a couple hours it might be the other way around. Very strange (to me anyway).

Ed

 

[Charlie Knighton]

form

i really like your form, what are the dimensions, and do you have a look down shot showing the inner lip thanks for sharing

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

BB - It's 16" tall and 5" max width. It is hollowed (but not from the top). The opening at the narrowest part of the neck is only about 1/2".

I'm working on getting a better photo of the piece. I'll post it in the "critique my photo" thread when I have it.

Ed

 

[Bill Boehme]

My apologies for "preaching to the choir", Ed
I've never used BLO under a hardening finish, always figured it would affect the bond being a non-hardening finish. Maybe I'm missing something worth trying.

Using BLO or other catalyzing oils such as tung oil to enhance the grain prior to applying a film finish is a common finishing technique not just in woodturning, but in "flat" woodworking, too.

Hey Ed - how about mineral oil ?

Bob

Definitely do not use mineral oil if you are planning to use a film finish or wax as the final finish. Mineral oil doesn't catalyze -- it just soaks into the wood and remains oily. Adhesion is not the only problem that it may cause, it may soften the film finish. You might be able to get away with applying shellac over it and not have a softening problem, but it may still have an adhesion problem.

Bill