Lacquer Finish By Jon Norman There are as many ways to finish a turned piece of wood as there opinions on which finish is the best one to use. Some people like natural finishes, some like an oiled finish, others like shellac, etc. If you want to try the lacquered "dipped in glass" look, this is how I do it and it has worked pretty well for me. This method takes a little time and effort, but I personally like the results. 1. Turn your wood as you usually do and finish sand down to 220 grit. Whether I have turned a wet piece or a drier piece, as soon as I am done sanding, I soak the piece overnight in a thinned finishing oil in a big baggie. Almost any oil will do, as long as it is thinned down to about 70% oil and 30% thinner. I make my own in one quart batches using equal parts of real turpentine, boiled linseed oil and real varnish (not polyurethane), and a capfull of Japan Drier. The next day, wipe it down and put your turning on the shelf for a week to dry, or until you can't smell it anymore. Oil takes time to dry. If you turned a wet piece of wood, leave it on the shelf until the wood itself has dried out. As you already know, that might be awhile. If you try to lacquer wet wood, the finish will chip off as the wood itself dries out. Then sand it down lightly with 320 grit sandpaper. The oil seems to stabilize the wood and helps to visually pop the grain out. At times I have used a thinned honey amber dye (not stain) to help the grain show through even better. This seems to help on woods like maple that don't have as much grain structure as other woods do. 2. Start coating your turning with lacquer. I use an alkyd fortified lacquer thinned 50-50 with lacquer thinner and a splash of acetone as this kind of lacquer seems a bit harder when dry and doesn't turn yellow with age as other kinds of lacquers sometimes will do. I use a 2" foam brush and put on 10 to 15 coats. Open grained woods like oak will take more coats to fill the grain, with a few coarse sandings in between. This usually doesn't take more than a day because lacquer dries pretty fast. Also, don't load your foam brush with lacquer much more than a quarter inch from the tip. Every time you put on a new coat of lacquer, use a new foam brush...they are very inexpensive and not worth trying to keep clean. Also, go slow when putting the lacquer on and let the finish flow out of the brush, otherwise your finish will be full of air bubbles. Dip your brush back into the lacquer for each pass. Take your time, pay attention to what you are doing, do the best you can...and don't worry. When you have built up your coats of finish, put your turning back on the shelf for a few weeks to cure...a month would even be better. Lacquer will feel dry in a few hours, but continues to shrink as it cures out, and that curing takes time...you can't speed up the process. If you sand and buff too soon, the finish will look good today, but in a month or so, it won't. 3. Take your turning back down from the shelf and admire your mess. It will be full of runs, drips and errors, and be looking pretty sad. Now you can start to sand it down. I use gold 320 grit professional sandpaper as it doesn't clog up as fast as other papers do. Fold the paper into thirds instead of just folding it in half, knock down the bumps and sand off all the gloss. Don't try to stretch out the life of the sandpaper either, dull sandpaper doesn't do what it is supposed to do. Throw it away and get another piece. An important thing to remember is when sanding, don't take more than a few swipes in one area, but feather into a run or drip and feather back out. Otherwise you wind up with a flat spot in the finish that you can't see now, but you will when you buff it up. Try not to sand through the finish down to the wood, because if you do, you'll have to build it up all over again. 4. Then wet sand it with 600 grit black sandpaper and use mineral spirits. If you pay attention, you'll actually be able to feel when you have sanded off all the sand scratches from the 320 grit. The surface feel will go from a slight drag to a slicker feel. Don't leave the mineral sprirts on the lacquer too long as it will soften the lacquer up if you do. 5. Set up the red buffing wheel and set your speed to somewhere around 1200 RPM. Charge the wheel and start buffing. Take a look at the spinning wheel and you'll notice the main body of the wheel itself and the outer frayed or fuzzy material. The first pass on the wheel is done by holding your lacquered wood on the wheel and very slightly depressing the main body of the wheel...only a sixteenth on an inch or so. Keep the turning moving about an inch a second. If you stop moving, the lacquer will heat up and burn. Do the whole piece in one direction if you can. The second pass is done just on the frayed tips of the spinning wheel and in the opposite direction as the first pass. If you buffed top to bottom on the first pass, go side to side this time. When you have finished, clean your turning with mineral spirits. After you get the hang of buffing laquer, you can run the wheel speed up to around 1800 RPM. 6. Set up the white buffing wheel and do as you did in the second pass with the red wheel, just use the very frayed tips of this wheel, and go in the same direction as you did with the first pass with the red wheel. In other words, always buff across...not with...your last pass of the wheel. The biggest mistake you can make when buffing on any of these passes is pushing too hard on the wheel. Lighten up and let the wheel do the work. Clean your turning again with mineral spirits. 7. Wax it with a good carnuba car wax. I use "Kit" Car Wax in the yellow can. It is available at any hardware store. Don't use wax containing solvents, or use furniture polish. Follow the directions on the can...let the wax dry completely before you wipe it off. 8. Call in your family and friends and show off your work. This method has worked for me and this is how I do my lacquered finishes. I tend to spend a little time on my finishes, because I personally like the way it looks. This method doesn't work well on pieces with a lot of nooks and crannies because it tends to them fill in and you lose a lot of the detail you worked so hard to get. It takes a little effort on your part to learn how to use buffing wheels, but a little practice and patience works wonders. I would guess that I have no more total time in each piece than a few hours or so. A good websight on finishes, if you haven't already been there, and you want to try finishes other than lacquer is: www.verinet.com/~drmelli/finish.html I hope this has helped...happy turning! Jon Normann