Starting my own (Wood) Burnishing experiments

[hbmcc]

It's good to get a comparison of the Polissor and "broom corn" version you made. I wondered if the home version might be on the hard side. Thanks for the follow up.

[C. in Indy]

Yes, the homemade one I did is a little hard and a little prone to errant straws that scratch....

Here is a Kentucky Coffeetree demo.  This is a wood resembling zebrawood, but with a more open grain.

The underside of this piece is just planed and sprayed with aerosol shellac:

   



The topside was treated to some wax-filling with the Polissoir, and then likewise sprayed with shellac:

   


It's really pretty fun to experiment with this!

Chris

[jerry s]

Yes, the homemade one I did is a little hard and a little prone to errant straws that scratch....

Here is a Kentucky Coffeetree demo.  This is a wood resembling zebrawood, but with a more open grain.

The underside of this piece is just planed and sprayed with aerosol shellac:





The topside was treated to some wax-filling with the Polissoir, and then likewise sprayed with shellac:




It's really pretty fun to experiment with this!

Chris

chris   how did the shellac stick on top of the wax?     jerry

[C. in Indy]

Jerry,

    I'm impressed how the shellac sticks to the beeswax-filled wood.  I would not have believed it, but Don Williams has a lot of material out on that technique.   I have also taken a stripped Millers Falls hardwood plane-knob, tinted it with red-tinted shoe-wax, and coated it with shellac, for a pretty easy and decent effect.   I also one time had a plane-tote of oily rosewood that just wouldn't let my Tru-Oil cure on it.  I sprayed that whole thing with shellac and it sealed up my mess firmly.
    All this said, I'm still only using the shellac technique on smaller projects so far.  For bigger stuff, I have obtained some pumice powder and I will hope to one day try that as a grain-filling slurry component on big boards....

Chris

[ZachDillinger]

I have always been a big fan of rubbing down planed surfaces, especially moldings, with handfuls of shavings. Basically the same principal. I like getting some use out of what would otherwise be waste. Same with using bits of broken glass as scrapers.

[C. in Indy]

I went a step further into the lore of Don Williams at donsbarn.com . 

This homemade square got some conventional scraping, burnishing, and then a "hot wax" heavy coat of beeswax, applied with a small tacking iron:

   


After that, some "hookless" scraping was done to remove the excess wax.  Then I buffed it.  This did a better grain-fill on gnarly oak than I've managed to do before.  That is, hot wax did even better than cold-flow polissoir wax.

   


Happy woodworking,
Chris

[Phil Thien]

It looks amazing!

[C. in Indy]

Thanks!

I have started issuing these squares as the occasional gift.
This latest one, I flowed-on a darker beeswax (see the brown candle shown), which nicely accentuates the lower oak piece.  The upper piece is red-elm which is usually quite light colored, so that worked decently too.

   


Happy woodworking,
Chris

[C. in Indy]

Just lately I read that Crucible Tool will be selling their Lump Hammer.  The handle is octagonal hickory (charred), finished in molten beeswax.

So.... I had to make myself a tool to try that idea out.
I just did an octagonal screwdriver (from a hardware kit by Penn State Industries).  The finish was a bit of dark wax to accentuate the grain, followed by a melted & flowed-on neutral beeswax, subsequently scraped thinner and buffed.   This will be a gift for a guy I know.  I *do like* how it feels!

   

P.S.,  waste not, want not.  The screwdriver stock was left-over from the table leg shown in the picture.

Chris