OCtoolguy

Thanks for your sage advice. I agree with what you say. I am not that organized yet but I hope to be someday. Time is running out though. Ha!

Thanks Roly, I'm not sure what that would be in dollars but I'll find out. Well, I found out. I wouldn't do it for that. Way too much work to make that little. Definitely a labor of love I guess. For a hardwood basket, I'd have to have $75 minimum. Depending on wood selection, probably more like $100. Oh well, I never figured I was in it for the money.

Very interesting. Thanks.

I take it that you apply the tung oil and then the spray shellac? Just wanting to be sure.

Now you have me wondering about my Dewalt. I'll have to go out and see if I have any of those problems.

Thanks Melanie. I did find it on my pattern cd.

Thank you JT, please, I didn't take it that way. That's the problem of the written word rather than the spoken word. I appreciate all the time you take to explain to all of us who ask questions on the many subjects. The baskets that I am now finishing up are not the same as the original that I pictured. That one is sitting on our kitchen counter and my wife loves it. I couldn't recall exactly what I did on it but if my memory serves me correctly, all I did was spray it with a couple of coats of spray shellac. I didn't even do a good sanding job on it because I wasn't all that pleased with the look of the raw wood. But, once it was finished, and I got very lucky with the color of the poplar, I am quite happy with it. Back at that time, I had gone to H/D looking for some spray varnish as that was what the pattern/maker had done on his in the book. I couldn't find spray varnish but I did find the spray shellac and also the tung oil and I already had the Watco oil from another time/job. I'm just in the information gathering phase so I asked once again, how to go about finishing the new baskets. They are made of a different combination of woods. Anyway, when all is said and done, I will make my choice after applying said finishes to some scraps and see what they look like. Someone on SSV maybe in a different thread suggested spraying the wood with denatured alcohol to see how the wood would look with a clear finish and it would dry and not effect whatever finish I applied. But, for the devil of me, I can't find that post. All I have on hand is some isopropyl alcohol and I'm wondering if I can use that the same way. I'm going to give it a go and see. Thanks again for your help.

First let me say this JT, those are beautiful. I will take everything that you say very seriously. To answer your first statement, yes, we have been down this road before. Unfortunately, I'm still ignorant. Sorry but finishing to me is as mysterious as the choice of blades is to others. I have that pretty much figured out. But after putting all the work into making a project, the last thing I want to do is screw it up by not finishing it correctly. And, since I hate sanding, I don't want to apply something and then have to sand it back off. So, with that said, I am still not sure of how to finish and what to use. It might be easier if there were not so many choices of products to choose from. There are many different products that say "oil" but nobody up until now has said what the difference is between them. Like tung oil. What the heck is that and how/when/why is it used? I find now that Watco is pretty much the same as BLO/mineral spirits. Well, since we can no longer by MS here in the People's Republic of California, I guess I will be using Watco instead. Someone else mentioned spraying the project with denatured alcohol. I knew I had a big bottle of what I thought was denatured alcohol but it turns out, it is isopropol alcohol. I don't know what the difference is but I'll find out. I'm a simple kind of guy. Point me in a direction, give me a shove and I'll go there. But on a subject that I know nothing about, the first thing I do is ask questions. If I have to ask more than once, it's because I'm dense or I forgot what the answer was the last time I asked. Thanks for all the help you have offered me over the last couple of years. I truly do appreciate it.

Wow! Thanks Bill. All great info. To answer your question of what I am wanting in appearance, I don't want a high shine just a semi-shine or sheen I guess you might call it. The reason I asked about mixing is that all of them say not to use with other finishes. Not that I intended to. I just was curious as to whether they can be mixed. Thanks for your help. I'm going to order up one or both of those books too.

Great idea. I never thought of that.

I'm curious, what do you ask for them price wise? And, if you are making from the same pattern as me, do you give the pattern designer credit in some way?

No problem Barry. Whatever questions and answers come along are all going into my memory bank. Such as it is. Like JT said, we've been here before.

@DGman. I just went online to Home Depot to check the price of mineral spirits. Well, once again California has got me/us. They seem to have banned it. So, what do I use in it's place to mix with BLO to make my own finishing oil?

Les, if you don't already have it, download the free program Irfanview. You can right click on whatever pic you want to open and on the menu that opens up, it will give you the choice "open with". Click that, click on Irfanview and the pic will open. There you can enlarge it to whatever size suits you.

Maybe a pic of what you are doing Grizz.

Why so many so fast? I must be doing something wrong. I have been doing a lot of stack cutting in red oak and haven't gone through a dozen blades.

What sort of confuses me is that when you read the directions on all the cans, they all say that they don't play well with other finishes. So, if you use tung oil, can you still use spray shellac? Or Watco oil/tung oil/ shellac? Or clear polyurethane with anything? I don't want to experiment and ruin what I have worked so hard on.

Dan, I don't have a pan deep enough or enough of the Watco oil to do what you say. Can I just brush it on? The can I have is almost full but I can get more if needed. I like the idea of the boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits. I'll have to go buy a jar. Glass containers are a thing of the past around here.

I'm making a couple of the baskets that I have shown for Christmas gifts. These pics are of the first one I made out of red oak top and bottom and poplar in between. If I recall, I just used the spray shellac but I can't remember. I saved all the scraps from cutting the new ones so I can test them but I thought I would lean on you experts for some advice. Thanks Wayne.

I am posting a pic of the finishes that I have and this is where I get confused. Can anybody shed light on how to use these finishes together or should they not be used together? The wood I'm using is maple top and bottom and red oak in between. Seven layers of red oak. Maple top and bottom. I have sanded and glued them all together so any staining is not an option. I didn't want to stain anyway. I want a clear finish that will bring out the grain of both woods. They are very nice grain. I have Watco Danish oil in clear, Fromby's Tung oil and Zinnser's Shellac in clear. I put the other two cans in just for the sake of whether they could/should be used in any combination with the others. Sorry for being so ignorant on this subject but it is truly my weak point. Thanks for any and all suggestions. If anyone feels that I should get some boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits, I'd love to hear about that too.

I understand now what you are saying. I didn't realize the Hawks worked that way. Another reason for me to maybe have a Hawk someday. I just got a gross of blades from FD and I held them up to compare with the Pegas blades I'm using right now and they are exactly the same length. Strange.

Kevin, I measured them against some FD blades and mine are all the same length. You must have gotten a really odd bunch of blades.

In my case, it was the bottom of the blade that had the clipped corner.

. Coffeeholics. It's life's blood for us. A pot of real coffee in the morning and then decaf the rest of the day. I can't imagine a day without coffee. We are "addicts".

Dan, I want to try your method. The question I have is, do you mix up a batch of 50/50 and then store it that way? Is it ok to do that? What do you store it in? Can you buy the quart cans unlabeled or just use one of the cans that they come in? I know this may sound sort of dumb but I'm just curious.