# Danish oil made my bubinga and oak too dark



## OscarG (15 Dec 2018)

I have a bandsaw box from oak and bubinga, intended to finish in Liberon Danish oil then maybe for a bit of extra shine, add some Briwax.

Thought I'd better test it first so tried the danish oil on some oak and bubinga tree decorations I made from offcuts.

Glad I did, very disappointed with the results, it's made everything way too dark, the previous red bubinga looks like a dull brown.

Check out the difference in colour below between the tree and the unfinished scrap.







I'm a bit stuck now, don't really want to use it on my bandsaw box.

Anyone recommend a wipe-on finish that plays nice with bubinga?


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## CHJ (15 Dec 2018)

Sanding sealers are the least 'darkening' of any of the 'finishes' in my experience.

BUT I think you will find Everything will darken the apparent colour due to the enhanced contrast due to change in light reflection and lack of scatter.

Try Water or Plain Wax on your samples and I believe you will see much the same darkening effect.


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## sunnybob (15 Dec 2018)

Oscar, oils dont work on boxes. It makes them all dark and unexciting.
I've given you my "secret" recipe for wipe on poly.
Here it is on an oil stone boxmade of bubinga;





and if that isnt enough, this is the same recipe on Padauk;


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## ED65 (17 Dec 2018)

Oscar, this is the sort of colour change you should always expect with an oil-heavy finish, and Danish oil is typically a mix of varnish and oil diluted further with more white spirit. 

If you want your wood to stay as close to the freshly sanded colour as poss a standard water-bourne finish is the thing to use, but these do the least to enhance figure and chatoyance (cat's eye effect) as seen in spades in Bob's boxes above.


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## OscarG (17 Dec 2018)

Cheers guys!

I do have some waterborne acrylic sanding sealer and lacquer that I've previously used for a guitar. Got a wonderful ultra hi-gloss finish but I lost 6 weeks of my life doing that... spray on, clean spray gun, wait, wet sand, sand too much, do a lot of swearing, apply..wet sand, polish, 2nd polish... ha I couldn't face doing all that again! 

I sanded those xmas trees back to bare wood and used boiled linseed oil instead of danish oil, it's still darkened it but not as much as the danish oil.

Thanks Bob, i've already applied it! It's a little darker than I wished but just about ok. I wish I had used your method though. Your bubinga looks a lot sexier than mine. Next time though!

Only one coat so far..






With a stronger light, looks a little nicer






Can you put Briwax on BLO? Thought it might increase the shine.


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## sunnybob (17 Dec 2018)

I like it Oscar, damn fine for a first attempt.
But then again I didnt relise you made guitars :shock: 
I've tried many different waxes, including the home made one that Memzey gave to me in august.
I suppose it must be me, but I just cant get on with them. Just too many stages and too much patience (aint got none of that).
To my eyes they have what I call a "wet look", whereas the wipe on poly is pure shine and gloss.

I'm hoping to get a bottle of sanding sealer for xmas, as there is a small chance that may win me over to waxes by making the wood smoother, but I'm not too hopeful.

So whats the next shape? c'mon, people need to know.
Hey, how about a GUITAR shaped bandsaw box? :roll: :roll:


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## sunnybob (17 Dec 2018)

Hey, same subject, different question.
How do you get those pics that big? The only way I can get my pics on this site is to reduce them to what you see.


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## OscarG (17 Dec 2018)

Thanks Bob!

I take pics with an iphone then email them to myself, set the filesize as "large" when prompted then upload them to imgur.

Well, only made one guitar, hopefully make more!

I'll PM you some pics and tell you where I got the sanding sealer from.


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## ED65 (17 Dec 2018)

OscarG":pzfzyp26 said:


> I do have some waterborne acrylic sanding sealer and lacquer that I've previously used for a guitar. Got a wonderful ultra hi-gloss finish but I lost 6 weeks of my life doing that... spray on, clean spray gun, wait, wet sand, sand too much, do a lot of swearing, apply..wet sand, polish, 2nd polish... ha I couldn't face doing all that again!


I think you can safely speed that process up Oscar! If you'd like to try an experiment on a less important piece or on some scrap, there's no absolute need to sand between every coat – no matter if sprayed, wiped on or applied by brush/roller – you can build up many coats of finish until you have a good film and wet sand in one stage at the end. Then buff/polish as needed.



OscarG":pzfzyp26 said:


> Can you put Briwax on BLO? Thought it might increase the shine.


Yes, wax can go on top of anything. 

You can also apply poly now too if you want to try it, oil-based varnishes can go on top of BLO without any problems.


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## ED65 (17 Dec 2018)

sunnybob":2senwoi9 said:


> Hey, same subject, different question.
> How do you get those pics that big? The only way I can get my pics on this site is to reduce them to what you see.


External hosting Bob. Imgur is one of the usual recommendations for an easy-to-use picture host, it's what I use too. I went to it very quickly after trying Photobucket briefly and finding it pants.


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## sunnybob (17 Dec 2018)

I do have pics on imgur, but have gotten out of the habit of using it.
Most of my pics are on my brothers website which works ok, but every so often I want a pic here that is not on the website. I shall have to try it again as there is often not enough detail in the small pics.


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## CHJ (17 Dec 2018)

Clicking on the thread display image should show a much enlarged image if the uploaded image has a higher pixel count.


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## sunnybob (18 Dec 2018)

Chas, thats the size i want in the first place. Is there any easy way od doing that?


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## OscarG (18 Dec 2018)

ED65":w7bkz3gi said:


> I think you can safely speed that process up Oscar! If you'd like to try an experiment on a less important piece or on some scrap, there's no absolute need to sand between every coat – no matter if sprayed, wiped on or applied by brush/roller – you can build up many coats of finish until you have a good film and wet sand in one stage at the end. Then buff/polish as needed.



I'll do that next time!



ED65":w7bkz3gi said:


> You can also apply poly now too if you want to try it, oil-based varnishes can go on top of BLO without any problems.



Ah thank you!

I'm so bad at finishing I forget my own mistakes. I went back through some old posts and found one where I'd previously butchered a BLO oak piece by using Briwax, think I put it on too soon and didn't allow the BLO to cure.

I've watched a few youtube vids where they show someone finishing BLO with pastewax (I assume it doesn't have the ingredient Briwax has that can possibly degrade the BLO if not cured properly?) so I've ordered some Liberon Black Bison clear paste wax from Screwfix. I'm gonna let the final coat BLO dry for 24 hours and test it on some scrap first.

It's funny the more I learn about finishing, the more I realise just how much I don't know! I find the whole finishing business like some dark arts impossible to master! For me by some distance it's the hardest part of woodworking!

To confuse my little mind even more I asked Liberon which of their products they'd recommend using on BLO to shine it up.

Just got a reply, firstly told me that as bubinga is exotic I should have used Teak oil, not BLO. Secondly they said "Once you have sealed any wood with an oil there is nothing you can place over the top." :shock: 

I hate finishing!


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## sunnybob (18 Dec 2018)

You are learninngsomething... youre learning why I just use wipe on poly :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: 

Word to the wise about that buffalo wax, from my own experience. It comes with a puncture in the lid. (no, I dont know why). And it should be yellow, not white (no, I dont know why)

According to some very senior people here, if its white it has lost most of its goodness (no, I dont which goodness).

i bought a tin of white with a hole in the top, I took it back and found their entire stock of 5 tins all had holes and all were white.
So there.


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## OscarG (18 Dec 2018)

I've just read about your pierced tin! I read the very informative thread by Custard into waxes. The one I just bought (Black Bison) turns out to be the worst! LOL... looks like once again I've chosen badly.

So having bought 3 finishes in last week looks like I need to buy one more! 

Gonna see if I can get some poly. Gotta be quick whatever I get. I need to hand over this finished box on Saturday night.

Getting desperate now, do you think this would be any good? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ronseal-UTVHG2 ... ne+varnish

I'm so out of my depth! I shouldn't be allowed to finish wood. Should just cut it, make it, sand it then hand it to someone else to finish.


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## custard (18 Dec 2018)

OscarG":4g2y6uzb said:


> Anyone recommend a wipe-on finish that plays nice with bubinga?



The key point here Oscar is that Bubinga will darken naturally with exposure to UV light and to the air. You may be able to slow that process down by a year or two, but for all practical purposes you can't prevent it.

The way I personally look at this is to ask myself how dark a timber has to be before I stop worrying about the finish making it darker? I've run many tests and monitored this across hundreds of pieces of furniture in dozens of different timbers that I've made over the years,






At the end of the day it's a personal judgement, but I suspect that almost everyone would conclude that Bubinga isn't a timber where you need fret about darkening or yellowing.

Furthermore, this isn't a project where you need a particularly tough or resilient finish. So the bottom line is be guided purely by aesthetic or practical considerations, like the degree of gloss or ease of applications. This is one of those finishing projects where pretty much anything can be justified, so enjoy the freedom!


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## sunnybob (18 Dec 2018)

too fiddly adding pics here, check your email.


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## OscarG (20 Dec 2018)

custard":3tttf12e said:


> OscarG":3tttf12e said:
> 
> 
> > Anyone recommend a wipe-on finish that plays nice with bubinga?
> ...



Thanks Custard

I don't mind it darkening with time, as you say I guess that's inevitable, but I would have liked it to start off looking "right" to my eyes.

I just feel like I started off with a really beautiful bit of wood but having lost that wonderful red quality (that Bob's bubinga items have) I haven't really done the wood justice.

Had I made the box, sanded it and then handed it over to one of you chaps to finish I suspect it would look infinitely better than it does now! Perhaps we could do a forum experiment on that front?!

I'm still debating whether to wax it as my experiments with Black Bison on some hastily made xmas tree decorations have yielded disappointed results.

This bandsaw box has now had 4 coats of BLO, each one wet sanded with 600. It's starting to have a bit of a sheen even without wax so tempted to leave it alone now. I assume as it's got a slight sheen the surface must be massively smoother than my crappy xmas trees so maybe I'll have better success with the wax this time.

I realised I've spammed the hell out of these finishing pages lately. Thanks to everyone who's helped!


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