For several years I have been applying a very high gloss finish to pieces dyed with TransTint dye to enhance the grain patterns. The gloss really pops the chatoyancy of the wood grain, and adds depth to the appearance that is often mistaken for glass. Several coats of Krylon Crystal Clear Glaze or many layers of lacquer are required to build some thickness, but the secret to the gloss depth is the final steps in the finishing process. I hand wet sand the finish surface to level with 600 grit discs, followed by wet sanding with 3M Trizact Hookit II foam backed discs of 1000 then 3000 grit. This is all to prep a polishing trick I learned from Gary Sanders in a coloring/finishing workshop at the Folk School years ago, and the final polish is the secret! Using a French polishing type cotton pad, apply and hand buff the surface with Nu Finish car polish. I was astonished, for I had used this polish on my cars for years, never thinking of using it on wood! The resultant gloss is outstanding, and the polished surface has a hard surface seal that is much more durable than any wax I have ever used, and quite hard, significantly resisting fingerprints. No mechanical buffing required, which often burns through finishes, and no having the work pieces snatched from my hands at a buffing wheel! There are several materials from the custom car world that are quit applicable in the wood finishing arena, and this one is a gem!
Good thing horses aren't lacquered and polished! I'd like to get your advice on photographing animals with black coats. I have the worst time getting decent pictures of a couple of jet black llamas here - there is zero sheen to their coats so the only highlights on the animal are on the eyes.
BTW, I saved your tip in my files. Thanks! I don't do many glossy pieces but I'm going to try it on a piece I recently finished with acrylic.
Beautiful piece and spectacular finish. A bit of a palm-to-the-forehead realization for me in your explanation. You're not polishing the wood, you're polishing the finish-duhhh. As you said, just like on a car. Makes complete sense. Thanks!
Don Derry has used automotive finishes on his lacquered pieces for years. I have described his process in a handout on my website: AirbrushingWood.com. Go to the Education tab under tutorials. Joe
Photographing glossy things is difficult. You have to make the reflection what you want. In most cases it's the lights and photographer that shoes up so you have to figure out a way to hide those. I have lots of tricks I use.
I will have to bring some lights over and try to shoot your Lamas. I once had to shoot actual coal inside a coal fired chimney to show how some protective coating the engineers developed worked. Had to crawl through a small opening and into the actual furnace. Hand held flash units were all that would fit in there with me so it was a challenge. We used to joke about shooting black cats in a coal bin and then there I was. Same thing with glossy. We used to joke about shooting a chrome trailer ball and then an artist from the Craft center made mirrored Spheres and needed photos. Quite a challenge.
I had a wedding photo gig a couple of years ago and told my grandson, staying overnight, that I might not be there when he got up - I had to go shoot a wedding.
"What?!? What did you say???
I had to explain quickly that shooting a wedding involved a camera and not a gun!
I had a somewhat similar conversation with a teen friend in Italy - she was learning English. English is a confusing language...
Dick, certain colors of llamas must be shot at different times. I thought everyone knew that.
....in the shadow areas. And John, a clean black animal coat with a bit of "Show Sheen" wiped on will do the trick. I assume that your pet llamas do get regular grooming?
>>>a clean black animal coat with a bit of "Show Sheen" wiped on will do the trick. I assume that your pet llamas do get regular grooming?
It may be challenging to wipe on the Show Sheen (or anything else).
The problem is llamas simply and naturally don't like to be touched. Most horses can be approached and touched in the field, caught and haltered, brushed, trimmed and detangled, hooves cleaned. You will never do that with MOST llamas without special tricks, in fact you will probably never even get near them. I volunteer with the South East Llama Rescue org and you should see some of our captures - on one it took us maybe 4 hours to get one that was loose in an unfenced countryside. People have been slammed into trees, dragged into ponds, kicked, cut... good fun!
Llama ranchers use feed or sorting sticks to guide them into smaller pens then into a 10'x10' "catch" pen first, and even then it can be an extensive effort to get them haltered. (The first llama I brought here had not been handled regularly and it took me days and special tricks to get a halter on her!) Once haltered, most are instantly "domesticated" - not necessarily cooperative but not insane.
Our llamas do get brushed, especially when taking them somewhere like I did yesterday for a school Farm Day. They are NOTHING like horses in their acceptance to grooming - try to brush the leg of a 300 lb llama that objects and you could lose a hand. I've had a slicker brush kicked out of my hand, bounce off the wall behind the llama, and hit the wall 20' away on the other end of the stall! I hired a girl who spent weeks with two llamas and an alpaca to desensitize them to where we could brush them. She was only partially successful with one.
Before shearing I blow the dust out of their coats with a grooming blower. Camelids roll in the dirt like horses except much more often - the coat holds the dusty fine dirt far better and deeper than a horse coat. Some of the animals have coats in excess of 4" thick.
The fiber on the llamas (and alpacas) is much finer than that on horses. We do have a sheen/detangler we use on our horses. I can try that on the llamas, but again, you usually can't touch the legs, hindquarters, or the lower quarter of the sides. People have been injured. If you see a llama that has just been sheared for the summer and the legs are not sheared, that's the reason!
People who show llamas have a much better time simply because they are groomed over and over for months or years and gradually become desensitized. Even then, some people administer a "calming" agent before shearing and show grooming.
"Horse people" are sometimes surprised at the effort it takes to catch and handle llamas. In normal situations llamas simply don't get handled as much as horses. I can walk up to any of my horses and brush them all over even if they haven't been touched in a while - not so with the llamas!
I built a steel restraint chute to restrain llamas for shearing, exams, hoof trimming, and medication. This makes life SO much easier! The animal is basically immobilized - the chute has removable panels to allow access to different parts. (You can still get hurt!) Building my own chute probably saved close to $2000 and I was able to add improvements over a commercial model. The large animal vets have these - UT even has a scaled-up version for working on camels (relatives of llamas!)
BTW, there is one time you usually CAN handle llamas - at breeding time! They are otherwise occupied. A friend with a llama ranch told me that's the best time to trim toenails, often a particularly challenging grooming task. (The pair can be oblivious to the world for 40 minutes or so.)
Back to the subject of photos: I wouldn't mind if the body is a light-sucking black if I could get a good photo of the head and face. However, another problem is you cannot normally touch anywhere on a llamas head or face unless it is an unusual or unhealthy llama except after a lot of t-touch desensitization, but even that doesn't always work. Better lighting is the best bet. Or forget the black ones. I took three llamas to a studio once for a TV commercial shoot and even though they had great lighting I took some with white and brown faces!
I would love to get some good photos of the new baby and mama!
