Ash flowers and vase

[Steven]

SWMBO asked for some turned flowers she had seen. I found a video and this is my take on it. The problems I have is the finish. The plan was to have the red vase and red flowers as the first test flower on the right ( very rough draft I even managed to drop the green stain on).

I flowers were going to use red spirit stain with spray gloss lacquer, I think this was working out well when I was told that she wants them natural :roll: . The coloured vase was done with the stain left to dry, shellac sanding sealer, denibed, melamine lacquer and carnauba wax. This is the first time I have tried colour, not the best. The stain did seem to go on even and every layer I put on seemed to move or lift the colour so much so I have left a band on the bottom were I was too heavy handed with the wax polishing and all over It now looks like the colour has pooled giving the effect of finger prints.

Any tips or ideas on improving the coloured on and how could I finish the unfinished vase and flowers?

I had to add this to make me feel better, I made a chuck to make for napkin rings based on the one bobham5 on you tube and I used this to see how my copying by eye was getting on, very happy with the results of these.

 

[loftyhermes]

The ones I've done I've sprayed them with cans of car paint picked up from a boot sale for £1 a can.

 

[tekno.mage]

I'd use Osmo oil to finish the flowers, probably Osmo TopOil - it doesn't darken pale woods too much. Two coats, with a day left between each for drying. Apply the oil with a brush, leave for a few minutes to soak well in, and then wipe off all the surplus with kitchen towel and leave to dry. Will dry to a lovely satin matt finish which is easy to care for.

Over spirit stain is more difficult unless you are prepared to resort to the spray can - where you could use either acrylic lacquer or spray applied sanding sealer and or melamine lacquer. I don't get on well with spray finishes myself (unheated, damp workshop deosn't help!).

My current method of finishing spirit stained wood is again a hardwax oil - either Chestnut's Hardwax Oil (slightly darker coloured oil - ok over the red and darker coloured stains) or Osmo TopOil (paler coloured oil - best for the paler colours like yellow and light blue.)

As you have already discovered, spirit stains bleed into virtually any finish you apply over them with a brush or cloth as the solvents in the finish dissolve the stain :-( This can result in a patchy result. However, I've found that appling the hardwax oil swiftly with a brush, then immediately wiping off excess oil with kitchen towel works somewhat better.

If you carefully wipe off excess oil along the grain of the wood, stain will dissolve slightly in the oil finish, but leaves a more even stain beneath. Keep wiping off oil until you are happy with the look of the piece (rub a bit harder to remove more stain in areas where the colour is too dark) and then leave it to dry for 24 hours before applying the next coat. The first coat of oil will have "fixed" the stain and you'll find little or no stain dissolving into the second (or subsequent) coat of oil.
I've had reasonable success with this method on stained ash & sycamore.