How best to apply danish oil after planing smooth?

[YorkshireMartin]

Hi gents,

I'm using a bevel up plane to smooth a walnut panel. When finishing with oil I usually sand to 240 and then oil. My impression was that this was the optimal grit to open the pores of the wood.

I've never worked with a planed finish (no sanding) before, so could anyone tell me the best procedure for applying danish oil to a planed walnut panel and also maple, if there is a difference.

Should I plane then hand sand before applying the oil, or can I apply oil directly to a planed surface? The shine I'm getting tends to indicate the grain has been pushed together very tightly so I wasn't sure if that was a good idea.

Many thanks.

 

[ED65]

When it comes to a finish like Danish oil this idea of 'opening up the pores of the wood' is somewhat mistaken. As a penetrating finish it will soak into the wood about equally regardless of the surface smoothness. The reason to sand to any given grit is to control how the surface looks afterwards, although you can sand between coats (as well as sand the wet finish into the wood) to alter this as well.

As for application method, exactly the same as you're used to.

Should I plane then hand sand before applying the oil, or can I apply oil directly to a planed surface?

You can sand if you want but depending on how good your planing is you'll be degrading the surface, not making it better. If you sharpen your irons to a grit higher than 240, the smoothness of the cutting edge is essentially transferred to the cut surface of the wood, so if sharpened to 600 the surface is approximately as smooth as if you sanded up to 600. It's not exactly like this in practice, but it's a good way of thinking about it.

The shine I'm getting tends to indicate the grain has been pushed together very tightly so I wasn't sure if that was a good idea.

You may be misinterpreting what you're seeing here, I presume you're worried the surface has been burnished? Normally planing won't burnish the wood, what you're seeing instead is the "brightness" of a planed surface which is the Holy Grail for some people in their planing journey.

Even if it did happen to be burnished, usually this won't be an issue when applying a penetrating finish. Numerous old finishing procedures involved burnishing the surface of woodwork prior to finish application.

 

[Jacob]

There isn't a formula.
Just splash it on - wipe off the surplus and see what it looks like after a few days - it takes time to dry and the appearance changes.
If you don't like it plane off a bit more and sand.

PS one thing about "learning" is that it is educational to see the results of getting it wrong, so don't be afraid of taking chances and making mistakes!

PPS "optimal grit to open the pores of the wood" sounds like baloney to me - an armchair theorist in between naps.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Much appreciated guys. I guess it's because it looks like almost like glass, I figured the oil wouldn't penetrate fully.

Good to know these points.

 

[MIGNAL]

Oil is very unforgiving in terms of sanding scratches. I take it up to at least 400G but then again I'm pretty much forced to do a very high standard of finish. I'm pretty sure that finishing at 240G and raking light will reveal those scratches. I guess it depends just how closely you look at these things. Shellac/french polishing doesn't have the same effect and it tends to fill in those scratches.
If you can finish with a plane and the surface is good enough there's no reason why you can't go straight to oil.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Oil is very unforgiving in terms of sanding scratches. I take it up to at least 400G but then again I'm pretty much forced to do a very high standard of finish. I'm pretty sure that finishing at 240G and raking light will reveal those scratches. I guess it depends just how closely you look at these things. Shellac/french polishing doesn't have the same effect and it tends to fill in those scratches.
If you can finish with a plane and the surface is good enough there's no reason why you can't go straight to oil.

Thanks MIGNAL. 400g is indeed a high level of sanding.

I'm a beginner as you may know, but I am striving for absolute perfection so I'm exceptionally critical of myself at the moment. I feel like I have nothing to lose by doing so. Perfection is the only standard I can think of to assess my own work, without having someone tell me. If that makes sense? Sanding marks and so on are not acceptable, which is why I've switched to a hand plane after having little pigtails with the ROS. I forsee a heck of a lot of practice but hope the end result will be worth it.

I make a lot of mistakes, but if I only make them a few times before it gets drilled into my stupid head I might do OK.

One day I will get this right, one day.

 

[Wuffles]

Oil is very unforgiving in terms of sanding scratches. I take it up to at least 400G but then again I'm pretty much forced to do a very high standard of finish. I'm pretty sure that finishing at 240G and raking light will reveal those scratches. I guess it depends just how closely you look at these things. Shellac/french polishing doesn't have the same effect and it tends to fill in those scratches.
If you can finish with a plane and the surface is good enough there's no reason why you can't go straight to oil.

Thanks MIGNAL. 400g is indeed a high level of sanding.

I'm a beginner as you may know, but I am striving for absolute perfection so I'm exceptionally critical of myself at the moment. I feel like I have nothing to lose by doing so. Perfection is the only standard I can think of to assess my own work, without having someone tell me. If that makes sense? Sanding marks and so on are not acceptable, which is why I've switched to a hand plane after having little pigtails with the ROS. I forsee a heck of a lot of practice but hope the end result will be worth it.

I make a lot of mistakes, but if I only make them a few times before it gets drilled into my stupid head I might do OK.

One day I will get this right, one day.

It sounds like you've given up on the ROS now, rather than finding out how to fix the problem you were experiencing?

 

[Jacob]

"Perfection" can be overdone.
In fact a competent pro craftsman is more likely to aim for "optimisation of effort" in that there is a point beyond which the effort of achieving perfection is not worthwhile.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

"Perfection" can be overdone.
In fact a competent pro craftsman is more likely to aim for "optimisation of effort" in that there is a point beyond which the effort of achieving perfection is not worthwhile.

Fair point, there are diminishing returns past a certain point. However, my theory is, if I know I can achieve perfection on a simple piece, even if it takes me months, I know I can do it. So really its for the confidence.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

Oil is very unforgiving in terms of sanding scratches. I take it up to at least 400G but then again I'm pretty much forced to do a very high standard of finish. I'm pretty sure that finishing at 240G and raking light will reveal those scratches. I guess it depends just how closely you look at these things. Shellac/french polishing doesn't have the same effect and it tends to fill in those scratches.
If you can finish with a plane and the surface is good enough there's no reason why you can't go straight to oil.

Thanks MIGNAL. 400g is indeed a high level of sanding.

I'm a beginner as you may know, but I am striving for absolute perfection so I'm exceptionally critical of myself at the moment. I feel like I have nothing to lose by doing so. Perfection is the only standard I can think of to assess my own work, without having someone tell me. If that makes sense? Sanding marks and so on are not acceptable, which is why I've switched to a hand plane after having little pigtails with the ROS. I forsee a heck of a lot of practice but hope the end result will be worth it.

I make a lot of mistakes, but if I only make them a few times before it gets drilled into my stupid head I might do OK.

One day I will get this right, one day.

It sounds like you've given up on the ROS now, rather than finding out how to fix the problem you were experiencing?

I'm going to get it looked at but thought I could try this in the mean time. I needed a plane anyway. Always pays to have more than one method at your disposal. I started from scratch so pretty much everything is out there to be explored

 

[ED65]

Further to the pigtails issue, a ROS won't guarantee you don't get them. It's still a matter of good technique to avoid them, as much as possible, and I think the two main things are not to move the sander too quickly and not to press on it (or let the dust extraction suck it down onto the surface). But perhaps it doesn't get stressed often enough that you should ideally finish off by hand sanding afterwards.

Or scrape instead, which should be faster.

 

[MIGNAL]

Ah yes, perfection. It will drive you bonkers. I once decided that I was going to achieve the finest French Polished surface that had ever been achieved on planet earth. It took 3 months, although it must be said that a huge amount of drying/hardening time was involved. I knew that the secret was to allow the finish to sink back and harden for a couple of months, then cut back and flatten. That way I was guaranteed to obtain a super flat surface that wasn't going to shrink back. I then used the modern form of achieving the finished surface by going through finer and finer grits until I finally finished off with polishing compounds and a buffer. The end result was so flat and glossy that if you tilted the wood to a certain angle you could see Neptune! Unfortunately there was so much dazzling glare that it was difficult to see actual wood grain, dependent on your viewing angle. I hated the rather austere, cold hard glass like look. A few days later I cut back with 800G and finished with the pad. Now it was imperfect, with micro lines from the cloth but it looked so much more 'human'.
Lesson learnt.

 

[mikefab]

......sounds like baloney to me - an armchair theorist in between naps.

I laughed out loud when I read this!

Wonderful image of someone waking to mumble a load of incoherent nonsense before drifting back off to sleep. No offence meant to the OP, just entertained by Jacobs turn of phrase.

I was talking to someone who runs a successful joinery company recently who advocates aiming for 90% perfection, with vastly diminishing returns after that.

Mike

 

[YorkshireMartin]

......sounds like baloney to me - an armchair theorist in between naps.

I laughed out loud when I read this!

Wonderful image of someone waking to mumble a load of incoherent nonsense before drifting back off to sleep. No offence meant to the OP, just entertained by Jacobs turn of phrase.

I was talking to someone who runs a successful joinery company recently who advocates aiming for 90% perfection, with vastly diminishing returns after that.

Mike

The funny part is that I think I got that info from an article on Fine Woodworking

 

[lurker]

The funny part is that I think I got that info from an article on Fine Woodworking

.........which pretty much confirms Jacob's point

 

[lurker]

Talking about perfection.

I knock out a range of simple products; bread boards, salt pigs & the like.
These are sold exclusively 8) in my niece's upmarket Delicatessent (sp?)

The first batch I made were really nice craftmanship and retailed at about half what Jamie Oliver sells them for.
I can do this because all the timber is waste from a local factory.
I expected them to sell very well, but would they hell.

These were replaced with a batch made just the same way but the finish is as rough as a badgers rear.
To the punters they are clearly hand made complete with plane marks
They sold so quickly I upped the price and make around 50 per year
This more than pays for my hobby :mrgreen:

 

[DTR]

^^^^ Funny old world, isn't it? :?