Re: A Russ Question
Russ
>Everything changes color with age. Nothing is permanent. Even polished bare wood is not permanent. Sunlight, UV, and humidity, mold spores, microcrobes, and pollutants in the air will all work to change the color of the bare wood, and deteriorate the polished surface over time.
Having said all of that, I have always been an advocate of "no finish" on Maple. The wood will change color with age, and the grain will naturally become accented. A little Renaissance Wax once a year will protect it from the air around it. The problem comes with selling a bowl and relying on the new owner to keep doing that. I do the best I can to solve that by including a small can of Renaissance and directions for using it with every "natural" Maple bowl.
If you are looking for a more permanent finish on the wood; both the wood will change and the finish color will change. The problem becomes one of giving the wood some protection, imparting a pleasing color, and not doing something that will hasten the color change as the years go by. A waterborne finish does the least to change the wood. A good quality lacquer is a close second. Oil and varnishes vary with their oils and resins.
All finishes will give some color and brightness to the wood. Wet the wood with either water or Mineral Spirits and you will see what happens. This is the best that you can expect. The waterborne finish WILL NOT accent the grain and the appearance will be less than this wetted surface. If the wetted surface is the goal, the objective becomes find a finish that will not change from that over time.
The wetted surface is about what you would get from a lacquer. A nitrocellulose lacquer (Deft) will yellow and become brittle with age. A CAB-Acrylic lacquer is water white in the can, it will stay that way with age, and it is more flexible than Deft. It may just be me, but have never been able to make a sucessful brushing lacquer from a CAB-Acrylic.
A simple way to do it at home is as Jamie described. Coat it with Deft. Wipe all excess off the wood while it is still wet, Buff with 0000- steel wool. Then use an oil finish, and as many coats as needed to get the degree of gloss you want.
If you are using a commercial product, Waterlox would be the better choice for the oil finish because it uses Tung Oil; and Tung doesn't get as dark as fast as other oils.
Linseed oil turns darker faster than Tung, but most commercial finishes are now using Soybean Oil and drying agents, and Soybean gets even darker faster than Linseed.