Soap finish on ash

[SurreyBod]

Has anyone tried this? Keen to give it a go but also to read up on it first & there's little online except an article on fine woodworking.


Particularly interested whether anyone has tried sealing it afterwards with a clear varnish

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,.

I've done it on an ash chair. It adds no colour as such, so the ash stays nice and white and the feel of the finish was kinkily smooth the finish is dead flat matt too.

However, since ash, maple etc. which benefit from no added colour from the finish, really rather yellow with sunlight eventually, so the benefit is short lived.

Putting a top coat over a soap finish really rather defeats the point, though. Being soap, it us likely to have adherence problems anyway, though shellac is likely to be OK. The finish is easily renewed when needed, so I wouldn't bother even contemplating overcoating with anything.

Mike.

 

[SurreyBod]

Thanks WB - my "logic" (if we loosely call it that) for using varnish was to first get the "white washed" look and then secondly make it permanent. I'm thinking of it for a picture frame so I'm not sure it will get any significant wear on it but I take your point on the adherence problems. I think I'm going to have to go shopping for soap flakes and give it a go.

 

[custard]

I've soap finished both Ash and Oak. It's about as fashionable as you can get at the moment, matt but with just a hint of burnishing on the arrises, like bone or driftwood. Ideal for a picture frame as long as it's well made...there's a lot of water involved in this! The FW article covers it off pretty well, not much reading up to do, it really is dead simple. Don't over complicate it, just do the simple basic job and leave it at that.

Another similar and very fashionable finish right now is to use a two part bleach on Oak, and then scrub it with a mild abrasive like Vim or Ajax. You rub through the bleach on the edges and corners and start to bring back some of the pale Oak colour.

Those two finishes, together with scorched/textured Oak and an iron stain, are pretty much where most of the big name designer/makers are at the moment.

 

[SurreyBod]

Many thanks custard - do you know how it behaves with an inlay like ebony? Or is that pushing it too far?

 

[custard]

I've never put a soap finish on anything other than Oak and Ash, however I'd be confident that it would cope with Ebony inlay very well provided the inlay was well glued in with a waterproof PVA, applying a soap finish is a pretty wet process.