What finish for lacewood?

[pencheff]

I turned a little 6" bowl out of Lacewood today. I felt like I was turning MDF... it just turned to powder at the touch of a gouge. Is Lacewood always like this or did I happen to get a really dry blank? Not sure I wanna deal with that again.

Bowl turned out okay, nothing spectacular. Now the question is, what finish should I use? My first thought is to use Danish Oil. Comments and suggestions please!

 

[Bill Boehme]

Maybe a thinned poly to soak in and give the wood fibers some strength. About 2/3 naptha and 1/3 poly should work well. After a couple coats of that, the wood ought to be adequately sealed. You could finish it with a 50-50 mixture of naptha and poly to make a wipe-on finish and apply several coats. The naptha flashes off moderately fast and you could apply coats at about 2 hour intervals. The thinned mixture flows well so it does not have some of the flow problems of unthinned poly.

Bill

 

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

I recently turned one of my segmented ribbons from lacewood. Maybe I had a very different part of the tree, but it turned quite nicely. For finish, I applied several coats of Bullseye sanding sealer, followed by General Finishes Satin Top Coat. The attached photo shows the results.

 

[n7bsn]

Like Malcom, I've had no issues turning lacewood, well, except for that insect hole....

I used BLO and a buff on the outside, but I used EnviroTex for the inside, since they were drinking vessels and I don't trust tropical woods and alcohol.

TTFN
Ralph