Black spirit stain and carbonising

[Chris152]

I had a lump of badly discoloured maple hanging around for ages and decided rather than burn it, to turn and stain it black.

With just stain it looked ok, but I decided to burn into the wood to increase the depth of black, which worked really well - it's a deep black, finished with grapeseed oil that gives the slightest sheen. (The discoloured maple at centre is what it is, but now with some more staining for good measure...)
Is this a recognised combination (stain/ burning) or should I quickly patent the idea?

 

[matt_southward]

I like the look - even though I'm usually more of a plain, oiled finish sort of person. Though I think the discoloured maple sort of spoils it. How about colouring the inside, like Dalboy's recent post - colour and a gloss shine would look very vivid on this (and mask the discolouration). Just an idea.

 

[Chris152]

Thanks Matt - I agree about the discoloured maple. I initially stained and carbonized the whole thing, but disliked the near complete loss of grain and thought it might as well have been made of plastic or something else. So I turned the inside again, stopping the pass just before the centre, leaving the black dot - which I also don't really like, it looks tacky to me.

So I see this as just another trial - I was also experimenting a bit with food colouring, which produces some pretty whacky results but again, I don't much like them. The success with the maple piece is the blackness it achieved; I reckon with decent, lively grain to contrast the black, it could look really nice.

 

[Dalboy]

There are so many ways to get black most have been tried before, the biggest problem with stains when you want to have a clean centre is that it can leave the stain just inside the lip where it has soaked into the wood. If the discolouration in the centre is from stain then there is not much you can do about that unless you have enough thickness to be able to turn it away completely.
I like what you have tried and agree that the centre black piece does distract from the piece. Keep playing that is how we learn by trying things even if they do go wrong. I certainly have had failures but have managed to turn them to my advantage.

 

[Robbo3]

Two hollow forms. The one on the right was turned after watching Mark Hancock demonstrate it at our club quite a few years ago. Can't remember the types of wood but was whatever I had to hand at the time (probably beech).
Like Mark's, these were blowtorched but with butane rather than MAP gas that he recommends, then finished with boot polish & burnished with an old banister brush.

One day I'll produce a finial shape that I like. If you don't know, then this is a good place to start
- http://www.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/Turn ... port1.html

 

[Chris152]

That's a pretty intense piece of analysis of a finial - I'll probably never try to turn one, but the golden section stuff definitely interests me. As for boot polish - that'll be next on my list! As Dalboy says, playing with possibilities is a great way to learn. (I've yet to have a go at using the oak galls I collected in Autumn, too.)

 

[matt_southward]

I actually like the centre dot, depending on how it's done it can add interest and echo the outer rim. Though I think it needs the round space in-between to work properly to pull it off. Even so, this piece has got me thinking about square bowls and burnt rims - I just HAVE to try it now! I think with added colour this design could look stunning, albeit more technically demanding due to colour bleed etc as Dalboy said.