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Friendship box

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Friendship box

Postby Steve Maskery » 15 Jan 2021, 22:43

Long story short - I have a friend of 40-odd years, who once broke my heart, and now her husband has left her with a house-worth of debt and stage 4 cancer...

OK. I would like to make her a present. Quickly.

I have some steamed pear, some sycamore (thanks Doug) and some bog oak (thanks Mike).

I plan to make her a box. It's 200mm long by 120mm wide. Golden proportions. About 100mm high. I plan to make the sides from the pear, mitred, splined with bog oal and with a bog oak raised and fielded panel lid. Lined with sycamore. I've not decided on hinges yet. I'd like to use the Crawford ones, but I've never used them before and I'm nervous about a first-time attempt on such an important piece as this. Maybe a perfect loose lid would be preferable to a Meh hinged lid.

I might have been cutting up wood all my life but I am still a novice in the Finishing department.

The pear is easy to finish. It is smooth and sweet. Easy. The bog oak isn't. It is interesting, sure, but it is also coarse. I thought I had some ebony but apparently not, so I want the lid panel to be nice and black and beautiful.

I have a few options, it seems to me. Accept that it is coarse and accept the finish as a result, or try to fill the grain and get it polished.

What would you do?

This has to be excellent.
Last edited by Steve Maskery on 04 Feb 2021, 21:46, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Mike G » 15 Jan 2021, 22:59

As you can imagine, I've tried one or two things with the bog oak. Far and away the best results came with a thin oil and varnish mix, wiped off, and built up in layers. I got great results with an old tin of Jacobean Dark Oak varnish (remember those days of coloured varnishes?) mixed with Osmo and white spirit, but any oil based varnish will do. Water based varnish was awful, wax was disappointing, Danish oil was pretty good. Shellac .....well, I reckon if you were any good at French polishing it might be pretty stunning, but just brushing the stuff on really didn't work out well. I don't have much experience with the stuff though. Water based lacquer was a failure . Well, I mean, it worked, but looked hopeless. Flat and dull.

That's one of the issues with bog oak.......it can really kill the light, and look strangely dull and flat. The semi-gloss finish I describe, though, makes it "zing".

One thing I would caution about, though, is how an oil and varnish mix will work out on the lighter woods. It may well turn them a little yellow, and more so over time. I know you've worked with bog oak before, so this isn't for you, Steve....but the dust from the bog oak can actually stain the lighter woods, and make them smudgy. You have to be very particular.

Oh, and I'd personally make a loose lid. The thought of wrecking all that work with a slightly wonky hinge.....no, no.
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Malc2098 » 15 Jan 2021, 23:03

The quick way luthiers fill grain these days is with CA Glue. And if you mix some sawdust from the stock you're filling, that helps fill some of the larger pores.

It cures rock hard, so advice is not to use too much, but when scraping after it's cured, so long as what's coming off is white, you know you haven't got down to wood. It can be polished or lacquered or varnished over.

And you can get black CA glue these days.
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Pete Maddex » 15 Jan 2021, 23:06

Steve I have fitted a pair of Crawford hinges and found it quite easy to do.

I have used danish oil on big oak with good results.

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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Steve Maskery » 15 Jan 2021, 23:06

Thanks MIke, that's helpful. I think I agree about the hinge.

It was a different century the last time I used polyurethane varnish, but that makes sense to me. Is it still available?
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Steve Maskery » 15 Jan 2021, 23:10

Malc, Pete, thank you both.

I did buy some stuff that said it was a black (well actually, black, muticoloured, clear...) but it set like rubber rather than hard, so I don't want to use that.. I suppose I could just use lots and lots and lots of layers of anything, really.

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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Blackswanwood » 15 Jan 2021, 23:31

Steve - the Smarthinge (Andrew Crawford) is really easy to fit and if you follow the simple instructions quite hard to get wrong. If you include making a test cut on a scrap piece to check the cut is centred it’s a total of five passes on the router table and it’s done.

A favourite finishing product for me on sycamore is Alfie Shine Hardwax. It takes a few days of applying and buffing but builds up to give a finish that brings out the detail and is durable.
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Mike G » 16 Jan 2021, 09:05

I haven't ever tried it myself, but there are some people who swear by fine-sanding the finish into the wood as a way of grain filling. Sounds messy to me! I think the basic idea is to slap your oil/ varnish/ thinner mixture on, then take a piece of wet 'n dry and rub the wood, making a thin slurry. You then wipe off in the usual way. I presume this is first coat only. However, I really don't see the need. The bog oak finishes beautifully the way I described, and the open-grain feel completely disappears.
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Woodbloke » 16 Jan 2021, 09:20

The SmartHinge(s) from Andrew Crawford are a piece of cake to fit, really very simple. I've done a few bits in Bog Oak, including the plinth for the Longcase Clock recently finished and I treat it no differently to any other sort of oak. Plane, scrape and sand to about 180g, and finish with a couple of coats of Osmo-PolyX, matt or satin. Then de-nibb with 0000g wire wool, thorough vacuum and complete the polishing with a good slathering of decent wax applied with a grey Webrax. Easy peasy :eusa-dance:

I agree with Mike that the Bog Oak dust will contaminate lighter wood and this was a problem on my clock as I had Birds Eye Maple adjacent to BO. I got round the problem by finishing the BEM with three coats of Raw Osmo before the BO got anywhere near it. Also, if you use the Mirka Abranet sanding sheets with a super powerful extractor, all the BO dust gets sucked up and there's no grain contamination of any sort. Again, on my clock, I had a BO inlaid line(s) in several places and with the proper sanding regime, there was no ingress of black stuff into the walnut - Rob
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby billw » 16 Jan 2021, 11:26

I’ll second all the comments about big oak being a pain. Looks fantastic but getting it there is like trying to drive an F1 car down a country lane, very slow and a bumpy ride, and you’ll probably chip the bodywork.

I used Osmo 3032 clear satin. .
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby droogs » 16 Jan 2021, 18:56

I would use a very thin shellac mix and dust from the wood to fill and then once gently sanded to 400 to give it a piano finish quickly and that is durable would be to use car 2 pack laquer spray. 3 coats leave 72 hours in a nice warm area and then polish with autosol
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Steve Maskery » 16 Jan 2021, 20:39

I do have a spray gun, but I don't have the booth.
I've got as far as deciding to do the finishing of all the pieces before glue-up, so that I have only the last bit to do when it is fully assembled.

I've done a bit to the box today. I prepped the sides and grooved them with a dado stack on my TS. I don't use the DS very often ( because it is a pain to set up), but for a job like this it is unparalleled. And this job is imporant.

groove.JPG
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I think I've got the bottom grrove a bit too close to the bottom of the box - I just need to make sure I don't break it before the bottom panel fills it.

I then filled the grooves with a strip of scrap, so that the walls of the groove were not spelched when I planed them, and then I had a bit of a workout shooting the mitres

shooting mitres.JPG
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I've also had a play at the top panel. I have a raised panel router cutter and have tried that on the bog oak. Mt BO board is ex-2", which means, due to its distortion, I can get a 40mm piece out of it. But the grain runs out a lot over its thickness, so I've cut the bord through its thickness to give me about 16mm thick, but nicely straight grained, The waste will not go to waste, it will make very nice tenon wedges.

The upshot of this is that I have a practice raised panel which is far from perfect. I'm getting a poor finish. I think my router is vibrating more than it should, so I need to have a good rootle before I cut it to size. I think something, somewhere, is not as tight as it should be. I don't think I was being heavy-handed with my depth of cut - half a mm at a time? And my cutter is sharp, I've used it on only one other job.

Anyway, so far so good.

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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Custard » 16 Jan 2021, 23:28

I've filled the grain on Oak before and I don't think it works, to my eye at least it looks "encapsulated" and wrong. I don't think it would be any different for Bog Oak.

One of the joys of Oak is the way the medullary rays look burnished and almost metallic against an open pored ground, obscuring that with a full grain-fill finish would be to lose something special and important.

Incidentally, I've used polished stainless steel Neat Hinges from Ian Hawthorne on a Bog Oak box and that was a nice combination. Bog Oak can be quite cool in tone, which S/S compliments.

Good luck!
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Custard » 17 Jan 2021, 11:47

Steve, I sent a PM to check you had all the wood you need for this project, but it didn't send. So, let me know if you need any timber for this box.

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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby billw » 17 Jan 2021, 14:38

Custard wrote:Steve, I sent a PM to check you had all the wood you need for this project, but it didn't send. So, let me know if you need any timber for this box.

Cheers


Here's the start of mine...
IMG_9336.jpg
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby firedfromthecircus » 19 Jan 2021, 13:26

Mike G wrote:I haven't ever tried it myself, but there are some people who swear by fine-sanding the finish into the wood as a way of grain filling. Sounds messy to me! I think the basic idea is to slap your oil/ varnish/ thinner mixture on, then take a piece of wet 'n dry and rub the wood, making a thin slurry. You then wipe off in the usual way. I presume this is first coat only. However, I really don't see the need. The bog oak finishes beautifully the way I described, and the open-grain feel completely disappears.


The oil slurry is a popular method with some guitar builders. Especially on the back of necks as the finish it leaves is perfect. Lovely and smooth but with no stickyness.

Here is a post I found describing the process. These guys use something called tru-oil. If you google tru-oil slurry there are plenty of links. How well it would work on bog oak I don't know, but you could do a rest piece beforehand?

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/288288 ... th-stains/
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Mike G » 20 Jan 2021, 09:41

Interesting, FFTC. Tru-oil is in fact an oil/ varnish mix* designed for a wiped finish, so very much the same sort of thing as I use on bog oak. It might be worth a try, but to be honest I'm getting nice results without doing it, and it sounds as though I'd need to hunt out a pair of gloves, so it may be a while until I get around to it.

*
https://www.guitarify.com/2012/07/tru-oil-as-a-guitar-finish/
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Steve Maskery » 20 Jan 2021, 11:18

Tru-oil ought to be good - have you seen how much it costs over here? :shock:
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby billw » 20 Jan 2021, 11:55

Steve Maskery wrote:Tru-oil ought ot be good - have you seen how much it costs over here? :shock:


I thought "well 9 quid isn't bad" then saw the size of the bottle :lol:
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Steve Maskery » 20 Jan 2021, 12:12

I would hereby like to nominate custard for the Champion Chap award.
Pics later.
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Re: Bog oak - one for Mike perhaps?

Postby Steve Maskery » 04 Feb 2021, 21:40

There has been a hiatus on this, but the basic box is glued up. In fact I glued it up yesterday, but when I came to it this morning, one corner was neither as tight as I has intended, nor pefectly aligned, either. Both close but no cigar.

I thought for a moment that I would soldier on and sort it out with a bit of fettling later, but I did come to my senses. I used my finest Japanese saw to open up the joint, squirted in some glue and clamped it up again. It's currently curing. I doubt I got all the old glue out back to raw timber, but I'm hoping - and expecting - that it will hold.

However I now have a decision to make, and I'd like your opinions. I plan to spline the mitred corners with bog oak splines. The question is what will work, and look, best? 3, 4 or 5? When the lid is sawn off and cleaned up the total height will be 102mm or thereabouts. I want the splines to be symmetrically distributed and I want the lid separation to be half-way between two splines. So these are my 3 options:

5-spline.jpg
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4-spline.jpg
(79.06 KiB)


3-spline.jpg
(76.92 KiB)


I have ruled one of them out in my own mind, but am conflicted about the other two. What would you do?
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Re: Friendship box

Postby TrimTheKing » 04 Feb 2021, 22:05

Two or three for me Steve, number one is too busy. I'm leaning towards 2.
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Re: Friendship box

Postby Chris101 » 04 Feb 2021, 22:09

Well I'm no woodworker in this company (or any company really) but odd numbers always look better to me. Try planting 4 plants together in a border. It's just wrong. Ok, it's not gardening but the third option works for me. Two looks ok but one looks a little busy maybe?
Just an opinion.
(Edit:) I suppose you have to balance against the depth of the lid compared to the proportion of the box overall as well for both look and purpose. In a ten cm box this might be quite important if it's for a specific purpose. With four splines you get more space in the box.
Interesting thread Steve.
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Re: Friendship box

Postby novocaine » 04 Feb 2021, 22:23

Rule of thirds applys to everything steve.
Carbon fibre is just corduroy for cars.
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Re: Friendship box

Postby Steve Maskery » 04 Feb 2021, 22:28

Thanks chaps.

Chris, you have absolutely nailed the conundrum there. I started with the idea of 5, but as well as looking too busy, the lid becomes very shallow, quite unsubstantial. Discarded.

4 splines give me a better-sized lid, but, as you say, 4 splines is an even number and odds look better generally.

But 3 splines leave me with quite a deep lid and it's not a big box to start with. Now the inside will be a bit bigger than the outside (Tardis?) because it will be lined, and the lining will be up about 12mm above the separation line. OTOH that separation line now comes quite close to the Golden Ratio of the box's depth.

It's not easy, is it? That's why I'm asking you all! :)
Last edited by Steve Maskery on 05 Feb 2021, 00:01, edited 1 time in total.
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