• January Turning Challenge: Thin-Stemmed Something! (click here for details)
  • Conversations are now Direct Messages (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Scott Gordon for "Orb Ligneus" being selected as Turning of the Week for January 20, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

shellac sealer coat under salad bowl finish

M

MICHAEL GOLD

Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
13
Likes
0
Location
ARCATA,CA
Greetings,
I have turned some white oak bowls for use as salad bowls. I would like to use a 2 lb cut of de-waxed shellac as a sealer coat & then 1 or 2 coats of watco oil or general finishes wood turners finish. Let dry for a day or two & then buffed using the Beale buffing system finishing with the carnauba wax buff.
My newby questions: Will a shellac sealer hold up to hand washing, salad dressing acid? Are Beale buffing compounds safe to use for a salad bowl?
Thank you for any suggestions, Michael Gold
 
MICHAEL GOLD said:
Greetings,
I have turned some white oak bowls for use as salad bowls. I would like to use a 2 lb cut of de-waxed shellac as a sealer coat & then 1 or 2 coats of watco oil or general finishes wood turners finish. Let dry for a day or two & then buffed using the Beale buffing system finishing with the carnauba wax buff.
My newby questions: Will a shellac sealer hold up to hand washing, salad dressing acid? Are Beale buffing compounds safe to use for a salad bowl?
Thank you for any suggestions, Michael Gold
Click to expand...

If you want to use an oil finish, it should be applied to bare wood and not on top of shellac or any other film finish. You could apply a film finish over oil after the oil has cured which in the case of linseed oil in Watco is at least two weeks or until the smell is gone. However, since you plan to use this as a serving bowl, I would suggest that you do not apply a film finish and especially do not use Watco. Most of the Watco products are a mixture of linseed oil, solvents, dyes, pigment stains, and polyurethane varnish. It's fine for furniture, but for treenware, a renewable finish is far better and safer. My favorite is walnut oil and I also like pure tung oil. Carnauba wax is fine as a final treatment to make the surface a bit more water repellant. I would forget about the tripoli and white diamond polishing compounds as they serve no useful purpose with treenware and I am sure that they don't add anything that enhances the flavor of the salad dressing. Periodically the bowl should be oiled to rejuvenate the finish.
 
Oak salad bowls

Michael.
Oak is one of those "open pore" woods that really wants a good sealer applied before you topcoat, and shellac will do an excellent job of inhibiting liquids. Any oil based topcoat will be compatible with your shellac sealer. It takes some extra effort to fill/seal all of the open pores, but you really don't want cavities for food particles and juices to attract the microbes that can cause spoilage.

Watco's Danish Oil is...well, ok,...(and used by thousands of wood turners every day) but if you want a better product that comes straight from a can, consider Waterlox*

Give your top coat a good week before buffing, and the tripoli wheel won't be of a whole lot of use. And, if you haven't sealed/filled those open pores well, the white diamond compound will give your bowl little white zits.
 
Mike Jones said:
Michael.
Oak is one of those "open pore" woods that really wants a good sealer applied before you topcoat, and shellac will do an excellent job of inhibiting liquids. Any oil based topcoat will be compatible with your shellac sealer. It takes some extra effort to fill/seal all of the open pores, but you really don't want cavities for food particles and juices to attract the microbes that can cause spoilage.

Watco's Danish Oil is...well, ok,...(and used by thousands of wood turners every day) but if you want a better product that comes straight from a can, consider Waterlox*

Give your top coat a good week before buffing, and the tripoli wheel won't be of a whole lot of use. And, if you haven't sealed/filled those open pores well, the white diamond compound will give your bowl little white zits.
Click to expand...

No Shellac is not good for direct contact with liquids and water will spot such as glass rings on tabletops. If you want to use this bowl for food go with what Bill told you. I have not used it , but some like walnut oil.
 
Mike Jones said:
Michael.
Oak is one of those "open pore" woods that really wants a good sealer applied before you topcoat, and shellac will do an excellent job of inhibiting liquids. Any oil based topcoat will be compatible with your shellac sealer. It takes some extra effort to fill/seal all of the open pores, but you really don't want cavities for food particles and juices to attract the microbes that can cause spoilage.

Watco's Danish Oil is...well, ok,...(and used by thousands of wood turners every day) but if you want a better product that comes straight from a can, consider Waterlox*

Give your top coat a good week before buffing, and the tripoli wheel won't be of a whole lot of use. And, if you haven't sealed/filled those open pores well, the white diamond compound will give your bowl little white zits.
Click to expand...

You are probably thinking of red oak which really isn't very suitable for treenware because of its large open pores. Michael is using white oak which does not have open pores and is excellent for treenware and very different from the red variety.

Film finishes such as shellac and varnish aren't the best finish for bowls that need to be washed because of the need to occasionally rejuvenate the finish. That would be a major overhaul for a film finish while a fresh coat of oil is a very simple task.
 
White oak, red oak, black oak....no oak

Shellac used as a sealer is a well accepted protocol. I would not recommend shellac for a finish (top Coat) for a salad bowl of any oak species. lacquer based sanding sealer will typically carry more solids, that will fill end grain and open pores a bit better than the shellac. But shellac is a very good sealer of both liquids and airborne moisture

The straight oils, Tung, Linseed, and Walnut, are penetrating oils that penetrate (and disperse) wildly in one grain orientation, and hardly at all in another so that the turner never can really know what benefit would be found short of cutting the bowl in half and examining slices under a microscope, What the turner can see, is that the penetrating oils will leave the surface entirely in some spots. These spots are at once vulnerable to abrasion, scratching, staining, and water spotting. And the rest of the bowl, with infintesimally small films over some areas would be wiped away easily with a few washings.

Far better it be that the bowl could take everyday and normal abuses including washing and towel drying, and remain as good a surface protector, and as pretty/showy and sound for years and years.
 
Obviously you are getting advice on both using shellac, or not using it. Personally, I would not. Some like shellac, but my experience is not good around lots of moisture. I also would not use the Beal Buff. I've had carnauba spot from rain drops. I wouldn't like it seeing the moisture from salad use. Sounds like you should do your own testing on a piece of scrap white oak before coating the bowl.
 
I've used thinned polyurethane as a sealer before. Reduce the poly about 50% with deoderized mineral spirits, apply with a rag while spinning slowly on the lathe, wait a couple or five minutes, wipe off with a rag. Sometimes it helps to moisten the rag with mineral spirits. The thinned poly will soak in to the porous areas and make the topcoat have an even look. Sometimes a second application is needed. The appearance of the wood after the first coat will tell the need or not for a second coat. A light steel wool or scotch brite before the topcoat is a good idea.

Nothing under an oil finish though. I want the oil to soak in and seal the wood from the inside.
 
You mentioned General Finishes Salad Bowl Finish. It is thin enough that you could put a couple coats of it on to seal the wood and whatever on top. I usually use it then wax but by itself, after 10ish coats, will give you a durable high gloss after buffing with the Beaal system
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top