I'm making some Cherry coasters from a branch I brought out Sunday from the ravine, I have about 22 cut tonight with the compound miter saw. I made them 3/4 inches thick, I think the sanding will start tomorrow night. After sanding what type of finish will bring out the color of the Cherry?
Not sure about the stain, but the lichens on the side are cool (I worked with a lichenologist for ~6 months last year, excuse the nerdiness )
I'm thinking about this, any thoughts? http://www.minwax.com/wood-products/specialty-finishes/minwax-tung-oil-finish
Maybe a spar urethane? Helmsman Spar by Minwax is a great sealer, water won't "ring" it either. Those will be cool....
Looks good to me. I would think something light or clear that would allow the natural grain/color to show through, but I'm no woodworker
Sounds good, what grit sandpaper should I pick up, I'm guessing I need two maybe three different types?
That's why I think the spar urethane will be perfect. It will deepen the natural color and allow the sparkle from the grain patterns to show through. I'd hit it with 100 grit, maybe finish it with 200-250. That'd probably be good. After the urethane sets up you could buff it with #0000 steel wool and then polish it with wax....they'd be like polished glass!!
I've used the Minwax Urethane but not the Spar but what I read it would probably be better as it is for exterior also, that way you shouldn't get the water ring. Scotty's right on with the grits but I would give it at least 2 coats and use the steel wool between coats.
You probably wouldn't need to worry about the wax if you give them at least 2 coats. The more coats the deeper the look will be and the steel wool will make it flat between coats.
After this project it's a Cherry walking stick, when I was clearing trail Sunday I found a smaller Cherry that had the top broken off from the ice storm so I save that.
Sand it with 100 grit, you can probably skip 120 and go to 150, then 180 or try to skip that and go to 220, or you could stop at 180 Boiled linseed oil mixed 40% mineral spirits, 60% Boiled linseed oil, put that in a aluminum throw away type pan dip them in ,wipe off excess ,let dry apply ,past furniture wax ,then buff . Or 2 or 3 coats of wipe on tung oil
if you want to see how it will look with a finish, or during your stages of sanding to see the scratches, just wipe it with some mineral spirits and you will see what you got
I sanded 18 of them tonight on the belt/disk sander with some 100 grit, I'll change to 220 tomorrow night. The one on the left was sanded and the one on the right wasn't.
You can definitely see the difference with sanded and rough. My initial thought was if this branch was dried in the field or is it green? , concerned for checking if it was green. Hopefully I didn't miss it in the initial post.
It came off a Cherry tree that was damaged in a storm (not sure when) so I would say it's green. If they check it will be okay, they can use them for hockey pucks! I'm going with tungston oil on these, this is actually a test run to see how they come out.
if you skip up from 100 to 220 you're going to have a really hard time getting the 100 grit scratches out especially sanding end grain I have used Formbys Tung Oil Finish, I really like it it's easy to use just follow the directions on the bottle
