Solid Oak - Stain/Dye/Polish/Varnish???

Hello

We've had the fireplace taken out at the new house and had a solid oak shelf put up. I'll get some pics soon. Can you advise what we should do to finish it? I.e. varnish, stain, or polish it?

It's been sanded down at a planers already. It was cut from a three tonne trunk of a local oak tree.

 

I wouldn't use a varnish . An oil type finish gives a natural soft sheen showing the natural colour of the wood . I have used Danish Oil in the past.
If it was for outside I have tried Ronseal 5 year stain , which is water based . I avoided this like the plague for years thinking water based can't be any good . It really is good for exterior wood.
http://danish-oil.com/

 

Boiled linseed,

 

Wax? Such as Schoolhouse Wax (which is a liquid wax) from Potmolen paints. Gives a nice feel, if that's what you want (rather than, say, a warm colour). Got it on our garden table, and it does feel nice, but I dunno how that compares to other products, such as Danish oil.

 

I've found that linseed oil, even boiled, can take quite a while to dry remaining sticky for some time. Also it darkens as it dries. Wax can work well but requires regular application with a bit of elbow grease. Again some waxes can be quite dark.
I have a light oak coffee table and I find that a yearly application of Danish oil works well. Easy to apply and dries fairly quickly.
I might consider using a silk sheen finish polyurethane varnish. Not too glossy, relatively easy to apply, hard wearing and low maintenance.
As for further sanding it depends if I was using Danish oil or linseed oil I would probably sand it smooth, while if I was waxing or polishing it I would sand it down to a very smooth finish

 

We use solid Vaseline here, only needs to be done once or twice a year on raw wood ...

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...v_prop=image&fr=ymyy-t-557&va=vaselina+solida

 

Years ago we had a solid teak dining table, and we used to oil that twice a year with teak oil, it doesn't protect the surface from marks at all so don't put cups etc on it. We ended up cleaning all the oil off and giving it a coat of varnish, it looked lovely and never needed doing again!!

Val

 

nFrost, what ever you buy you need to do some test bits first, see if you can get a bit of the same wood for the tests or do it on the back where no one will see, as the stains can look differant on the oak and so you like it when if dry and finished, you don't want to stain it then when it dry be thinking i don't like it

 

Thanks all, I think Danish Oil is the one for me. Clear without too much colouring. I think I could do a test bit on the bottom of the shelf - inconspicuous as they say. It shouldn't get too many marks. Our coffee table gets lots of marks, we use olive oil on it every so often and it looks right as rain again.

 

That is one heck off a lot off sanding , to get one shelf from a three tonne tree !

 

You should've seen it when I first picked it up! 'Rough hewn' would be a pretty accurate word. The guy at the planers said they always come like that, he's done a really good job on it.

 

Need a pic

 

I suspect a problem - you're about to use unseasoned wood in a fairly warm dry room. @pete is the man here..............

As far as finish goes (and I've done a lot successfully as an amateur, even in the bathroom) Nigel is spot on. It needs to be as smooth as a very smooth babies bum, and then smoother still. Work in the direction of the grain and start with a medium grit sandpaper, then do it again with a fine grit. Use good sandpaper, and change the piece immediately if the wood oils clog it up. At this point I would stain it (even if the stain is identical in colour). By staining it you will highlight any areas that need to be smoothed some more - these areas will look darker and more matt. After staining to a consistent finish (it may take 2 or 3 attempts for a first timer) I would seal the wood. I use white polish, but Danish Oil is also good (take care with the old rags - they can spontaneously combust according to the instructions on the bottle that I have). I would then finish with a good bees wax.

 

I deal a lot with oak nowadays with my carvings and its a very unstable wood I have found. Our oak mantle was made from 4 inch thick oak in places. This was reclaimed stuff and not green, I think it was used once for sea defences, although I could be wrong.

Here's a picture of it



Anyway this stuff was old and seasoned but still needed time to aclimatise to the house, we gave it a long time and it still wasn't enough and has still twisted away from the wall slightly. The black was all the splits that the wood had, this was intentional and was filled with expoy resin, stained with black ink.

Mr Jane used linseed oil on our mantle but we do use danish oil on other bits but it depends on what effect you are after. Linseed oil gives a natural finish to the wood, danish oil a satin like effect, varnishes and shellacs a glossy high end finish.

In my carvings I've found that oak can split very easily if it's thin boards. If you oak is still green then it will definitaly split, seal the ends with anchourseal or PVA to reduce the water loss through the end grain. If it's klin dried then it should be ok to treat but will probably still split at the ends a bit.

Oak has a very high water content, which is why it splits so easily as the water is lost when the tree is cut down. You can check the water content of the wood by using a moisture metre to measure the percentage anything above 15% (I think) is still high in water/not aclimatised