Finish for white pine

[Woodthorn]

Hi all,
Almost finished old style open style tool box in white pine. I am familiar with UB Traditional Wax (Baltic) and have used on Tas Oak projects with great results. Have been reading "A Polishers Handbook" by Neil Ellis but now have almost too much information on a range of finishes. need to finish this project before fathers day. Need help please.

I want to dye the pine a darker color to give aged look, but don't have the time to experiment before fathers day. Any hints on easy methods to achieve a low sheen finish but to bring out the grain of the pine and to darken it.

Have tested the pine with UB Traditional Wax (Baltic), but not dark enough.

cheers

woodthorn

[Claw Hama]

Hi Woodthorn, try giving your test piece another coat or two it might do the trick. It depends how dark you want it on what type/colour stain to use. Pine is not a great timber to stain as the stain is drawn into some parts of the timber and almost repelled by other parts of the grain. It tends to always have that Baltic look about it. But if you want to go good and dark/chocolatey I'd go a Wattle Wallnut try it on a test piece first and just follow the directions. Good luck.

[ubeaut]

Have been reading "A Polishers Handbook" by Neil Ellis

Don't take any notice of that idiot. He hasn't got a clue.

How dark do you want to go? Honey colour - regular shellac. Darker brown try Black Japan - by cutting it with metho you can get a variety of shades from teak through to a deep walnut almost black look. Add a bit of red universal tint to bring it into the mahogany shades.

Easy to use, dries very well and doesn't need a dozen top coats of anything to finish it off. You can get away with a couple of light coats of shellac and then wax it for a pretty decent, quick, finish.

You can also leave the BJ as the finish in it's own right and rub it out with wax later on to give an antique, been around the block a few times, type finish.

I very seldom use oil so I.m not too sure how oils go over BJ.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil