Expanding my finishing selection

[LancsRick]

There are countless things I still have to learn on woodworking, but the one area where I'm probably really ignorant as to the extent of my lack of knowledge is finishing. To address that, I thought I'd look to expand my selection of finishes a bit so I start learning a bit...

At the moment my selection comes from:
- if it's turned, it gets cellulose sanding sealer and then microcrystalline wax, buffed up on the lathe (from ornamental to moderate use)
- anything that's heavy use defaults to danish oil
- anything that needs to be waterproof gets varnished

So, from that highly limited starting point, what would you suggest I start exploring next?

Thanks in advance!

 

[clk230]

for a good easy to apply durable finish then you can't beat a good hardwax oil .

 

[custard]

You've got a pretty good range of options already. It's often useful to be able to apply a heavily cut coat of shellac to the inside of drawers and cabinets (odour free) and this will stand you in good stead if you ever want to progress with colouring or French Polishing. Personally I like Osmo, but if you've already sorted Danish Oil and varnishing then why add yet more tins on your shelves?

If your objective is to make progress with woodworking then you don't need more than two or three simple finishing options. More than that and you're devoting too much time to finishing, which means there's not enough time left for actually building furniture!

Good luck!

 

[ED65]

I agree with custard here that you've already got a good range of options. And something that you may not realise is you can combine them in various ways to give more permutations if you wanted to.

Shellac is an obvious thought as a worthwhile addition though, almost any woodworker would benefit from having some on hand since it's a very versatile material, even if not as a finish in its own right. And used as a final finish you can of course go the whole way to French polishing, which on a small scale shouldn't at all scare the novice. It's only a showpieces and larger areas that it's really challenging to do to the required standard.

Also shellac can be used in much the same way as cellulose sanding sealer, with the advantage of being a little less toxic, so instead of being an addition it could be a substitution.

 

[LancsRick]

Brill, thanks. I'll replace my cellulose with shellac when I've finished it then and get the best of both worlds