Thanks for the kind words and interest skoreef. I'm really glad I decided to do the finish myself and glad that you were able to get something from the thread. To be quite honest, I waivered on paying someone to do the finishing work for fear of wasting all of the work/money I had put into the wood. I found conflicting advice all over the net and couldn't make up my mind. It wasn't until a guy I work with prepared a number of sample blocks for me that I decided to do it myself.
The products used are as follows....
wood = Select Alder (if you don't specify 'select' you will likely end up with 'knotty' alder which has large knots and holes in it)
tint = TransTint Red Mahogany (bought at Woodcraft)
stain = Java gel stain from General Finishes (bought at Woodcraft)
lacquer = satin clear spray (Home Depot)
wax = Minwax Finishing Paste (Home Depot)
The process (I missed the tinting step in the original list)....
* Hand Sand with 100 (there were a few spots wherein I had to take off more material than feasible by hand - for those I briefly used an orbital sander then finished by hand until the swirls were gone in reflected light)
* Filled the nail holes and cracks then touched them up with 100
* Hand Sand (stopped at 150...going further not advised)
* Tack Cloth
* Tint (IIRC, 6 drops per quarter cup of water but you'll want to run a handful of test solutions on scrap wood first)
* Resand areas where the tint did not soak in well (mostly due to glue residues that were invisible until after the tint was applied)
* Touch-up resanded areas with tint
* Tack cloth
* Stain
* Tack cloth
* Four coats of laquer (scrubbed down the work room first to get as must dust/dirt out as possible and wore a disposable painters mask)
* Tack Cloth
* 0000 Steel Wool (very light rub to knock down any high spots in the laquer)
* Tack Cloth
* Wax
IMO, I liked the finish better without the tint. My wife liked the darker undertones given to the lighter grains by using the tint though. The first picture you quoted above was taken during tinting. If you look closely, the upper left hand portion of the photo is lighter than the rest. The rest of the piece had been tinted at that point.
For the hole filler, JIC you missed the post above...I tested four different filler options. The best ended up being a mix of saw dust (same wood type) that had been pulverized in a coffee grinder, a touch of wood glue, and a touch of stain. I mixed it up into a paste, smeared it into the holes/cracks, then did a final sand before staining the rest. Perfect match.
The only other thing that I would do different is I would have added a LOT more light to my work room. A few 250 watt halogen lights would have helped me see more of the blemishes along the way.
Here is the finishing wax that was used:
HTH! :thumbsup:
