Refinish Question on Salad Bowl Set

[Dan Mosley]

I had a friend at work give me a salad bowl set that they wanted refinished. 1 salad bowl with 4 small bowls made out of Walnut, medium in color with a Laquer finish on them.

The first thing I did was to wipe them down well with laquer thinner and srcub off all the laquer. Then again washed them with clean laquer thinner and wiped down. After drying - they looked dry and lifeless.

Next, I have a 5gal bucket of BLO/MS/Varnish and I put them in to soak for a few days and will sand them with 220grit every 24hrs and return to soak.

Then, ill take them out and wipe down well and let them dry for a week or more. Ill post some pictures as soon as I take them out of soak.

Question: I am not going to use laquer on the insides of the bowls again like the person did before, and im wondering the best way to finish these for the person.
I could let dry and just 3 wheel buff ending with Renaissance wax.
Thoughts ??

 

[moseley]

I have been finishing salad bowls with tung oil and buffing with the Beall system but omitting the final wax. The bowls will inevitably get water on them, and I have noticed that water tends to create spots on a waxed surface. Also, the salad dressing to some extent restores an oil finish.

 

[Dan Mosley]

Thanks ill try what your suggesting without the wax........

 

[Dave Roller]

I just completed two large salad bowls. I sanded them to 400 grit and then put a couple coats of mineral oil on them. I figure that this finish will be the easiest to "restore" by the eventual owner. No wax!

 

[Paul M. Kaplowitz]

salad bowl finish

I use Mahoney's Walnut oil on all my food safe items. Works great.

 

[robo hippy]

I never got any satisfaction from the mineral oil finish. It would look nice for a few days, and then be dry again. Much better finish from the Mahoney's Walnut oil. It does take a week or more to cure out.

robo hippy

 

[Mark Levitski]

Ditto Mahoney's oil. Ditto no wax.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I really like to use oil finishes on bowls. They give a nice soft sheen that is easy to renew. I like both pure tung oil (very expensive) and pure walnut oil (low cost and found in the salad oil section of your grocery store). I agree with the comments about not using any kind of wax because it is not durable enough for something that will be used and washed frequently.

 

[KellyDunn]

Dan, you are doing to much. Do not soak the work in that mix as you are not going for any kind of translucence. Take it out and let it dry. When dry give it a good buff with tripoli. If the whole bowl is shiny stop. If not dip in your mix and let drip a bit and dry. I like bounty towels. When that is dry and you buff. The bowl should be shiny. Then you are finished. Repeat until shiny. If they are tossing salad in these dont wax. If you were putting them in a gallery then wax. Since you went to all the effort of stripping these recommend to them a light coat of mineral oil if the pieces look dry. And to wash with soap and water and hand dry. But what you are doing should add many years of life to these bowls. Life like, they should stay looking very nice.

 

[MichaelMouse]

I never got any satisfaction from the mineral oil finish. It would look nice for a few days, and then be dry again. Much better finish from the Mahoney's Walnut oil. It does take a week or more to cure out.

At least when the mineral oil evaporates or is washed away it won't leave rings on the linens.

 

[KellyDunn]

Dan, I am going to answer your private email to me here as it may help others. If your mix is a third each,blo,ms and varnish you have made what is called a danish oil. With only a fourth of the varnish you have much more of a linseed mix.So yes add more to bring it up the 1/3 mix. Linseed oil and moisture do not do well together. Its hydroscopic and any buildup in high humidity becomes a godawful sticky mess. For all woods not going to be translucent I thin down gloss poly(varnish is fine) maybe a quart per gallon and add enough blo to give me ten minutes of drip time in my bucket before it begins to hit. Giving me time to dry the piece and pop it my kiln overnight. Since my goal is to have the wood pores with finish but not a buildup I buff back to the wood. I only sand to 320 grit. Going to 2000 may impress another turner but it might bum you out when the bowl has salad tossed in it with a bit of gusto with the salad tongs. I only buff with brown tripoli. I do have a beige buffing bar from craft supplies and some white diamond. It just depends on the piece as to what I will go in the buffing process. My experiance with refinishing salad bowls is the oils from the dressing have in general made a mess. If I clean it up and my finish will not dry because of the oils I strip that and give it a buff and tell the folks thats as good as it will get. Any built up finish except epoxy will degrade over time and the oils will make through the finish and degrade it. That proof is looking at old work done both with and without a built up finish. I saw a 25 to 30 year old Straka piece recently. Used all the time and still looks great. He used a lacquer sanding sealer between his last few grits and put mineral oil over that. He did not need the mineral oil buts its what he did. I used to just use mineral oil. When I get one of those back to refinish they look horrible. If they are good and dry after 20 years I clean it up and put it through my new finish process. 16 or so years ago I went to the poly finish. When I get one of those back they tend to look good to great. Starting with western contact some Hawaiian makers began using a very built up finish. (Kukui nut oil had been the traditional finish). If it was just an art piece they still look good. If used every single one is black and sticky. I then make some determination on its historical value to touch it or not.

 

[Dan Mosley]

Kelly thanks for the explanation I really appreciate it...........
I have a question I wanted to ask about your comment........

Kelly comment::: For all woods not going to be translucent I thin down gloss poly(varnish is fine) maybe a quart per gallon and add enough blo to give me ten minutes of drip time in my bucket before it begins to hit.

Question:::Im not sure if I understand what you mean by giving you a 10min drip time can you explain this a bit more ?
Are you talking about when you take the bowl out of soak and them amount of time you let sit before hand drying it off ?

I agree and understand what your saying about salad bowls and the sanding to 320...........
I also use the soaking solution for vessels I make to.
Alot of times I turn wet wood from start to finish and living in So Calif with the heat I run into cracking problems and have tried many ways to slow down the drying (bagging, sealing etc- some work well). One way that I have found that I like is to turn the vessel and soak it for 2-3 days and dry it off real well, then bring it inside to dry, They are not checking/cracking and I let them sit for a week or longer to dry well. Then buff or apply whatever finish I have decided on.
Sometimes I have pulled them out after 24hrs and sand with 500 or 600 wet with same mix, dry 24hrs and resoak it again - doing this 2 or 3 times and then dry inside for a week or more, then buff and if I wax them I use Renissance wax applied by hand.
When I sand to above 1000grit on a pc I have only applied Renissance wax after I have polished it the final grit.....I have not tried any other finish method if I have sanded that high.................
Thanks for any comments you make - this is a interesting topic I think............Dan

 

[MichaelMouse]

Dan, I am going to answer your private email to me here as it may help others. If your mix is a third each,blo,ms and varnish you have made what is called a danish oil. With only a fourth of the varnish you have much more of a linseed mix.So yes add more to bring it up the 1/3 mix. Linseed oil and moisture do not do well together. Its hydroscopic and any buildup in high humidity becomes a godawful sticky mess.

Well, no. It is an oil, and hydrophobic, not hydrophilic. That's why it's used as a basis for paint and varnish, or, with metallic dryers added, as a finish in its own right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linseed_oil It's even mixed with various organic trash to make linoleum, which is enjoying a resurgence where wear resistance and flexibility are desired.

If you soak something in a drying (polymerizing) oil, then allow the surface to skin over, it'll take a VERY long time for what's underneath to cure, because it doesn't have access to oxygen.

Your mix of thirds is a long-oil varnish, which is going to be softer and more flexible than a mix of mineral spirit and oil/resin like the various wiping finishes which have more of some sort of resin to toughen them up. I like to use the commercial Wipe-on-Poly in salad bowls. The first coat penetrates and disappears on all but the most burnished hard woods, and even the second, after the 15-minute wipe, rarely leaves a shine on the surface. If there is one, I cut it back with CAMI 320 (P400) to make the surface much less porous without leaving a surface finish which might chip. Less porous means the oils and bacterial forage in the dressing won't be able to hide from the wipe that should follow each usage. Using a mineral oil wipe along with the vegetable type will leave a nice nutritious goo, of course. Also collects dust and stuff from the air.

 

[Dan Mosley]

Mike....Kelly.............ok im sure I understand what your saying........let me ask this.............If I mix up a new bucket of the MS/Oil/Varnish...........what specific type of varnish do you think will work best ? and should I mix it leaner than the typical 1/3 each ?
Thanks I appreciate the help here......

 

[Bill Boehme]

..... Linseed oil and moisture do not do well together. Its hydroscopic and any buildup in high humidity becomes a godawful sticky mess. ....

Well, no. It is an oil, and hydrophobic, not hydrophilic.....

OK, I'll play with mixing water and oil, too. 😉

Most things are hygroscopic to some extent, even if only minutely so, but I don't think that there is any such thing as hydroscopic although a hydroscope is an optical device for underwater observation. And, while linseed oil is hydrophobic, it still will absorb a trivial amount of moisture from its surroundings.

It's enough to drive one to drink ... as long as it's not from a hydrant. 😛

 

[KellyDunn]

OK, I got the the term a bit wrong. But since I live in a very wet place my knowledge of what happens to a linseed finish only has about 25 years behind it.
I have my dipping mixes in 30 gal trash cans. I have a kind of lifting grate the pieces get set on to drip after being dipped. I only soak Norfolk pine for translucence. I dip and let drip other woods. When I say hit I mean the mix is starting to harden. So I gear it to last at least ten minutes. I then dry it with paper towels. I use a lightbulb kiln as it is so wet here it may take weeks to dry. I do have to check for bleeding from the pores for about an hour after putting a piece in the kiln. If I forget I can have one heck of a hardened mess to buff off the next day.
My Norfolk mix is just thinned down linseed. I do have to add driers after a time. For that the pieces are immersed untill I am happy and then a daily dipping process and then over to my poly mix. But the 1/3 mix works. Its just not what I do. But its easy compared to how complex I have made the process.
In my other wood poly mix I use an ACE brand gloss poly. I only get two months out of each batch before it begins to gel and I start over. If I used a higher quality poly the mix gels on me much faster.
Alan Lacer has been a great help over the years when I have had finish questions. I got the term hydroscopic from him. But I bet I heard it wrong.

 

[Gretch Flo]

ditto mineral oil

The old adage once an hour for a day, once a day for a week , once a week for a year or something like that. With oil finishes (mineral oil, danish oil. walnut oil), sometimes a week later it gets dull. I have used min oil til it had a nice , not plasticy shine. However at times mineral has left a mark on the green craft linens I had. (and a friend's table!!!) I don't use it anymore and am very careful on any bottoms with any finish. Gretch.

 

[MichaelMouse]

Mike....Kelly.............ok im sure I understand what your saying........let me ask this.............If I mix up a new bucket of the MS/Oil/Varnish...........what specific type of varnish do you think will work best ? and should I mix it leaner than the typical 1/3 each ?
Thanks I appreciate the help here......

I'd lean heavier on the solvent and maybe even the varnish. 25/40/35 perhaps. The solvent is what keeps the oil fluid. Bill notwithstanding, the water that works its way out of the work during repeated immersions evaporates into thin air, as does the solvent. So thinning will allow a more rapid rate of penetration as well as allow the whole to drip and dry a bit faster. Your warmth will speed the cure as well as aid evaporation if you're vented well enough.

Urethane is popular, and a bit harder than alkyd resin, so it would be my choice of the two most available. Not sure if anything but Watco, or even Watco is phenolic anymore.