Polishing wooden handles

C

copenhagen69

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Feb 13, 2013
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I am curious your process on getting a nice glossy finish to your wooden scales?

I have read to sand up to around 1600 grit then polish on a buffing wheel.

Then I have also read that you need to fill the pores on raw wood before buffing.

I have not seen much on adding a finish to the wood and probably because it would wear off with use would be my guess.



.... soooo how do you go about getting that nice high polish look?

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
Personally I sand to 2500 grit and then buff.

I then finish with a compound I made myself. People who flood wood with tung or danish oil are missing the point of exotic and stabilized wood. They don't need it. That's why I use a special wax finish I made just for knife and gun handles.
 
kind of like a french polish?

have you ever tried Renaissance wax on them? I have seen that thrown around on some knife supply sites.
 
Renaissance wax is a micro-crystalline silicone oil/wax. It is not for wood finishing. It is for rust protection and making things look shiny in museums. It would be terrible as a handle finish ... if for nothing more than the smell. It is great for putting on blades in storage and between use to keep rust spots away.
 
copenhagen69 said:
kind of like a french polish?

have you ever tried Renaissance wax on them? I have seen that thrown around on some knife supply sites.
Click to expand...

No. French polish is not a substance, its a technique for applying shellac as to give a high gloss coating.

And as stacy pointed out, renaissance wax is for metal to prevent it rusting. It is not a wood finish.

Most wax based wood finshes are paste waxes where an oil and wax mixture is made to make a very soft and pasty wax that can be easily applied. Mine is a hard wax finish that is slightly more difficult to apply as it must be heat up enough to apply in a thin coat.

This is a wood finish I originally came up with while working in a high end wood shop. A client wanted a wax based finish for guitar tops because he wanted to be able to feel the wood without a layer of plastic film finish. The current version is a modified version of that old one that I use to finish my knives and other small exotic wood projects.
 
Ben,
Woodworkers have used that technique for a couple hundred years.

I apply a hard wax (usually carnauba or some hard stick blend) to a spinning muslin or linen buff. The friction melts a bit of the wax onto the cloth wheel. The wood object is then applied to the wheel and the friction again melts the wax and transfers it onto the wood. The heat from the buffing works it into the surface and buffs it to a high gloss. Using just the right amount of pressure on a slower, clean, fine cotton buff (or finishing by hand with lamb's wool), will make it look like glass. The same technique is used with hand held power buffers on furniture and other wooden objects.

When lathe turning things, I usually use French polish or such, as it is fast and simple. On the better objects, I use the hard wax and apply it as the piece spins. I apply pressure with a soft clan cloth to distribute the wax across the surface evenly. The pressure is just enough to melt and smooth out the wax. I then buff it with clean cotton or lamb's wool.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Ben,
Woodworkers have used that technique for a couple hundred years.

I apply a hard wax (usually carnauba or some hard stick blend) to a spinning muslin or linen buff. The friction melts a bit of the wax onto the cloth wheel. The wood object is then applied to the wheel and the friction again melts the wax and transfers it onto the wood. The heat from the buffing works it into the surface and buffs it to a high gloss. Using just the right amount of pressure on a slower, clean, fine cotton buff (or finishing by hand with lamb's wool), will make it look like glass. The same technique is used with hand held power buffers on furniture and other wooden objects.

When lathe turning things, I usually use French polish or such, as it is fast and simple. On the better objects, I use the hard wax and apply it as the piece spins. I apply pressure with a soft clan cloth to distribute the wax across the surface evenly. The pressure is just enough to melt and smooth out the wax. I then buff it with clean cotton or lamb's wool.
Click to expand...

its also important to not overload the wheel. Too much wax will leave deposits and a gummy finish you have to remove and reapply.
 
I've never heard of applying wax like this before, especially not on woods like cocobolo or other oily ones. Can you show me a pic of a finished handle that's had this treatment?
 
as NC Biker mentioned there are pages and pages of wood-finishing discussions on this forum already, but I'm always interested in learning new things. Particularly curious about these waxing techniques. My own experience suggests that a proper oil finish will penetrate and protect the wood while also bringing out a nice luster - even on naturally oily woods - but if I can get superior results with just wax I'd love to know how and why. Any and all pictures would be welcome too!
 
No experience with a buffer but I sand mine to 1500 grit and apply tru oil. I heard Karl Anderson say in one of his videos yesterday that gloss is not a product of the finish but a product of the sanding and prep that goes into the wood before the finish is applied.
 
That can be true, BKT, but there are woods that truoil won't cure on, like cocobolo, and THAT'S what the wax finish is supposed to be for, I think.

Ben, I don't want to hear you anyway, so post something for crying out loud. You've done us a favor by losing your voice! :D;). Show us whatcha got!
 
I used to think The Google would render forums like this obsolete - at least for certain topics. When I want to learn about wood finishes, for example, I seek out the opinions of actual wood experts - not blacksmiths, machinists and jewelers. I want to know what people who have been working with wood professionally every day for 20 or 30 years have to say about the subject.

Googling "finishing oily woods" produces about 543,000 results. Among them, just on the first page:

This link, from wood-database.com, extolling the virtues of shellac

This short article from The Wood Whisperer, extolling the virtues of shellac

And this piece from Antique Restorers, extolling the virtues of shellac and ... yes, wax

I've gotten good results using shellac on certain woods and then just lightly burnishing on a coat of Antique wax once it's cured, but I have nowhere near the knowledge and experience as the wood experts. So if the real wood experts on bladeforums dot com truly have a better way, then please do share.

And we don't need to hear your voice or see your pretty face either - just the wood please :)
 
In echoing a little of what Dick just stated, I'm going to be putting padauk scales on a couple knives that I just ground out. I found an online reference from a woodworker that applied several different finishes to padauk to see which would be the most stable. As many of us know, padauk has a nice color starting out, but fades over time. The conclusion was that a coat of tung oil on padauk, while slightly tinting the wood a little more reddish, provided the most stable finish in terms of color. Shellac also did well in preserving color. I've decided to give tung oil a shot in this case to see how it works out. Here's a link to the test if anyone's interested: 6 finishes for Padauk
 
I always thought tune oil was an indoor finish and teak was an exterior finish. Exterior finishes hold up better to water and sun. I have used teak on bocote and some rosewood. It doesn't give the high gloss but looks good and holds up well also. There are a lot of different ways to finish wood. I say pick a few and try them out and see which one you like the best.
 
Any discussion of finishing technique needs to start with:

1: What is my intended use for the wood? In this case, I realize it is a handle, but is it on a kitchen knife, an outdoor knife? What stresses will it be subjected to?
2: What wood are you going to use?
3: How do you want it to wear? No finish will remain shiny through continual use, but some will last longer than others.
4: How much does the wood cost?

So, if you are making a hard use knife out of let's say purpleheart, which is a pretty tough hardwood (but not real expensive and generally boring grain); you want the finish to wear well, but you aren't too worried about it being a glossy finish after a week in the woods. So you sand well to 6-800 grit and finish with tru-oil. Easy day. Is this the best possible finish for this handle? No, but it is a decent one, and you used purpleheart, it isn't worth an enormous effort.

Now let's say you are doing a showy knife in box elder burl and ebony. You stabilize the burl thoroughly and get everything ready. In this case, I would go one of a few options. For the most durable, but hard to repair if damaged finish, I would use a CA finish polished on a wheel. The easiest to repair but least durable would simply be polishing the knife out on the buffing wheel with white diamond compound after sanding. A good balance between these two would be doing a hand rubbed oil finish of many layers, with days and steel wool between coats. This would give by far the best look to the piece, but doing this properly will legitimately take months. The final technique I would use would be a shellac finish with a wax topcoat. This is relatively easy to touch up if it is damaged, and looks amazing, but makes a pretty poor finish from a durability standpoint.

Also remember that not only is there a limit to the level of polish a given wood will take from sanding (try taking poplar to 1200; compare to poplar at 600). There is a limit to the effort you should put into a wood based on its price and the price of the project overall.
 
Joe, the issue is that oil is not film building. Cured tung or teak oil "which is just tung oil with a little bit of varnish mixed in making it closer to a Danish oil" is so soft it can be picked away with a finger nail.

The simple fact is there are really no finishes you can apply to a knife that will really PROTECT the wood. The best you can hope for is make it more beautiful.

That's why knife makers use these incredibly hard, tough, oily or stabalized woods. Because they don't NEED protecting.

That's why I use a wax finish. When I make a handle out of kingwood or cocobolo or ironwood, I'm not trying to "protect" it when I finish it. I'm making it more attractive. With the possible exception of a thick layer of UV Cured polyurethane the wood is going to be orders of magnitude stronger than the finaih.

Everyone talking about shellac is referring to exotics woods used in decorative applications as boxes or decorative turned bowls. Not things that will be handled all day like knives.
 
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