Cedar of Lebanon - grrr

[tekno.mage]

I recently went to Ockendon Timber and stocked up on some nice small exotic blanks for making little boxes. Yesterday I made one from some Cedar of Lebanon - a wood which my Mum has always liked (guess who the box is destined for!)

The wood was nice to turn albeit rather soft and I got a reasonable finish off the tool (even on the inside which was finished by scraping), but was horrible to sand (blocked up rhyno red & abranet in no time with resinous sawdust) and it marks really easily (scratched the top of the lid removing it just before applying finish - grr).

However my real problem with it is that the finish I used hasn't worked. I applied two light coats of melamine laquer thinned 50 - 50 with cellulose thinners and lightly burnished with a paper towel on the lathe. Last night the box was looking & feeling fine. This morning, something oily & sticky is bleeding through the laquer on the end grain, especially on the inside of the box.

Any tips to avoid this problem in future? Should I just stick to an oil finish, or would wiping the thing over with white spirit or cellulose thinner before applying the finish help?

tekno.mage

 

[CHJ]

Sounds like you either have wood from a young "Cedar of Lebanon" assuming that it is named correctly, or sapwood from an older source.

The soft nature and difficulty in sanding is typical of C of L but all that I have used, sourced straight from the tree log pile, has been very dry in texture with no sign of resin.

If you come across C of L again try hardening the surface with cellulose sanding sealer to reduce scratching and more even sanding but I'm afraid there is little you can do about the resin which will continue to bleed.

 

[TobyB]

I have turned a small 10 cm bowl and a much larger 20 cm lidded box from CoL - and I wouldn't want to seal the wood with a finish because one of the things I liked about it was the wonderful smell (fantastic around workshops in Morocco where they use loads of it) ... I'm going to make a jewelry box for that reason too ... I used lemon oil for a finish ...

Cheers

Toby

 

[Jenx]

Never had the fun & pleasure of CoL yet .. but have done a couple of pieces in Pencil Cedar ... and it too produced a lovely fresh aroma when being worked.

I'm not sure if its a related species ( i'm not so hot on the 'botany' bit , I must confess ) ...
but the couple of pieces I'd had, whilst being a wee bit soft by comparison to some of our other favoured timbers, did finish well enough, and didn't cause any 'leaching' of fluids ..

Chas's thoughts on the sapwood or younger wood sounds like the reasoning, TM ... can you get hold of any more of it, and from a more 'heartwood' area of the tree ?
8)

 

[tekno.mage]

I actually bought two small pieces of the cedar of lebanon and have used half of one of them to make the box - hopefully the other piece will be less oily - but I think I might stick to an oil finish on this wood in future.

tekno.mage

 

[cornucopia]

any finish which forms a barrier isnt suitable for lebanese cedar,lemon oil is the key until the wood has been in your house for a while- the best way i've found to sand it- is wet sanding using lemon oil.

 

[CHJ]

This is C of L,

Sealed with cellulose and soft waxed, imparts cedar aroma to the hands when handled but no sign of oil in the timber at all, in fact 600 grit abrasive just produces talc like dust with no clogging.

Wood came from large (600mm+) branch material felled in 2002 and left in wood pile, owner could not burn on open fire due to excessive spitting of splinters so presume there was free oil in it then, rescued by me in 2005 and just turned like rain soaked wet wood at the time, last remnants have been stored under bench and are now extremely dry and light weight.