# Best finish to "pop" the grain?



## Season (Oct 8, 2008)

What is the best stuff to use before CA to bring the grain out?


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## ldb2000 (Oct 8, 2008)

BLO , Teak oil , Tung oil , take your pick they all work great


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## Ligget (Oct 8, 2008)

I use BLO! Sounds illegal doesn`t it.


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## igran7 (Oct 8, 2008)

I too use Blo and it works great for me.


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## Season (Oct 8, 2008)

Do you let it dry before applying the CA, or just jump straight to the the first coat of CA withe the wet BLO on there?


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## Dario (Oct 8, 2008)

If the base (wood) is prepared/sanded properly...CA will POP the grain as well without the yellowing too.

YMMV.


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## jeffj13 (Oct 9, 2008)

Any oil will do the trick.  BLO will add a yellow tint, oils like mineral oil will not.  

It is commonly thought that you need to flood the wood with oil to achieve the desired result, but recent tests have shown that a quick wipe accomplishes the same thing and significantly reduces the drying time.  

If you are usings CA or CA/BLO finish, you probably don't need to wait at all after applying the BLO.  I wait a week after applying BLO before I apply lacquer.

jeff


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## RussFairfield (Oct 9, 2008)

I agree with Dario. The CA glue itself will do a good job of accenting the grain IF you sand the wood to 12,000 Micro-Mesh or 2000-grit sandpaper before applying the CA finish. You can get a preview of the finish by wetting the surface with water after it is sanded. Let it dry and resand before applying a finish. Otherwise, you might get a cloudy spot in the finish.


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## leehljp (Oct 9, 2008)

Dario said:


> If the base (wood) is prepared/sanded properly...CA will POP the grain as well without the yellowing too.
> 
> YMMV.


In the world of woodworking, "Popping the grain" is more commonly referred to in two distinct and separate parts:

1. in relation to finishes (oil based) which brings out or enhances the grain accent or color giving it a "warmth" and making the grain more distinct than if it had no finish or a very clear finish like a very clear lacquer or water based poly . . i.e. the "yellowing" is what gives it warmth and "pops" the grain.

2. applying water to raise the grain (and let dry) and then sand down. Here, "popping" is raising the grain up so it can be sanded down. Sanding to 12000MM is not "popping the grain" as it has not been "raised" to be sanded. However the end effect is similar.

Straight sanding itself, no matter how fine, is not referred to as "popping the grain", at least I have never read that it is or heard that either. (But I have been isolated in Japan for a few years.) On the grand scale of time - as pen turners, we still are rather new in this line of work - so we can create our on lexicon and make it mean what we want. :biggrin:

One thing about taking the wood to 12000 as Dario and Russ mentioned - the finer the finish of the bare wood, the better the grain shows. Especially where chatoyance is concerned.


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## Dario (Oct 9, 2008)

leehljp said:


> On the grand scale of time - as pen turners, we still are rather new in this line of work - so we can create our on lexicon and make it mean what we want. :biggrin:
> 
> One thing about taking the wood to 12000 as Dario and Russ mentioned - the finer the finish of the bare wood, the better the grain shows. Especially where chatoyance is concerned.



I guess you are right, I am indeed referring to better showing the grain and hi-lighting chatoyance.

For me, best results are attained by soaking the wood with thin CA just after sanding to 400 (going finer is a waste IMHO).  Note that all voids or open grain should be cleaned before CA is applied.  This soaks CA in the wood which stabilizes it and fills all voids too.  I then sand all CA off the surface and continue to MM 12000 before applying my CA finish.  Again YMMV.

While some wood looks better when oiled (yellowed)...I just prefer some in their natural color.  I know they will all "gray" in time but plain CA finish (and lacquer) gives me longer "natural color" than others.


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## RussFairfield (Oct 9, 2008)

Some clarification. In general terms, there are several ways to accent the wood grain and any chatoyance it may have, and which is best depends on the wood and the grain we are accenting. . 

As I learned it, "popping the grain" on furniture refers to accenting the chatoyance or grain coloring that is the result of different end and flat grain orientations in the same piece of wood. Since an oil finish darkens the wood, it darkens end grain more than flat grain because the end grain absorbs more finish than the flat. 

Oil finishes were the traditional way to accent the grain fast when ithe wood was sanded to only 220-grit, and most furniture people still believe it is unreasonable to sand any finer than that. 

The grain can also be accented by sanding to finer grits, and we have that option of sanding to finer grits because of the smaller size of what we are sanding. When polished to a high gloss, bare wood with a coat of wax will exhibit the same properties as the oil finish at 220-grit, but without the amber solor change from the use of the oil.

If we were to sand to 600 grit, we would find that a shellac or lacquer does just as good a job, and by sanding to 2000 grit almost any finish other than waterborne will do the the same thing to the grain as oil finish did at 220-grit, and maybe better. Most waterbornes don't accent the grain very well because there is little to no color change, and they don't brighten the surface. The exceptions to this is Enduro and Unoxyl because they do.


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