At our latest Sunday Turning session we explored the use of spirit staining on the wood and wax finishing. Whomever, allowed us to have a blow torch and spirit stains in the same room needs ‘more training’ but we survived ! NB: the actual blow-torching was completed outside and away from the spirit stains … we’re a bit mad but not totally stoopid !!
Bob Hastie had prepared some blank canvas bowls to demonstrate/experiment upon firstly with spirit stains and lastly with wax finishes (gold & silver). Interaction being at the forefront of our demonstrations , enthusiastic comments and encouragement were received from the audience, with the resultant bowl design by Committee !
After a lot of wiping on and wiping off; adding various spirit colours; and contributions from the floor (the demonstrator should really not ask for suggestions), the spirit staining produced a lovely effect on the bowl. The secret we decided is that ‘more is more’ but you need to know when to stop i.e. before you get brownish (wood) effect.
Lesson learned we moved to wax effect and decided to keep it simple and go for silver then gold wax rather than adding stain then wax, with the resultant shimmering bowl demo stating the effect across two tone wood – the darker wood picking up the silvering wax and the lighter the gold wax.
Thanks again to Bob for the fab demo … we’re all off to the supermarket to buy water based food dye and gold shoe polish !
Isle of Mull Wood Turners 