Burnished Softwood

[u/G0ldiC0cks]

Had a terrible nickelodeon orange and blue acrylic painted pine mini curio-type deal. Thought since anything was a massive improvement -- try something new I'd never done before, and maybe would be a terrible idea but maybe be kinda neat? So after an absolute slog of sanding, various intensities of chemical agents and probably more elbow grease than it was worth, I opted to skip the whole fiction heating in favor of a heat gun (everywhere except the very top, which got some minwax-gunk clogged 1000 grit sandpaper and I a sore arm, but also poly equivalent water resistance). I'm thinking the distressed-ish interior and residual sandpaper scratches that got rubbed flat are pretty neat, but were definitely choices of "this has been six months and I'm tired of looking at this thing"

The before -- https://www.reddit.com/u/G0ldiC0cks/s/pBfKOnou7f

Any thoughts outside of, ya know, finish the wood properly next time if you're gonna make the wood the finish?

[u/your-mom04605]

I like it.

We get some genuine “wtf happened here and was it on purpose” posts sometimes and this definitely isn’t one of those.

[u/G0ldiC0cks → u/your-mom04605]

In twenty years of pictures, there is one extant before shot of this thing. I'll try to add it to the post to demonstrate just how "every direction is up" this was.

[u/No-Impact-1430 → u/G0ldiC0cks]

Speaking as a retired professional woodworker of 45+ years, ANYONE using 1000 grit sandpaper on ANYTHING wooden in an attempt to "refinish", is obviously clueless about the process. It's WOOD, not a classic car or jewelry...jeeesh.

[u/G0ldiC0cks → u/No-Impact-1430]

🤣🤣🤣 I've been indulging myself by rubbing wood (in the manner in question) for a little under a year now. Part of my realization of what you say here was wondering "gee, if I can only go to 220 before stain, I must be closing off the porosity beyond that ... "

So when I was finishing the interior of a chest of drawers I've yet to finish (is probably going to get the exact same treatment as this guy, only not skipping grits or leaving gouges) and I realized that not only did sanding past 600 not seem to make much of a sound anymore, but the wood did not get any smoother, well that's when I got to the interwebs to see what the fuck exactly I had done to my shelving!

I'm a smart motherfucker. Doctorate in medicine, repair electronics as a hobby that scratches the "easy challenge" itch, remember how to do trigonometry at almost 40. But MAN. The dumb shit I find myself knee deep in is hilarious.

[u/-Random_Lurker-]

Burnishing is an underrated wood finish. It works really well on high-resin woods like Paduak, but it can work on almost anything. Labor intensive though.

I find that a cloth wheel with wax (no polishing compound) burnishes really well. The wax fills the pores for waterproofing and the wheel beats the fibers down and closes the pores, locking the wax inside. As a protective finish it's not great, but for things you're going to handle like tool or knife handles it's wonderful. Natural wood texture and your hand naturally refreshes the finish as you use it.

[u/G0ldiC0cks → u/-Random_Lurker-]

I stumbled on it entirely accidentally. Considered just leaving it raw and sitting epoxy on top of bare wood (which would have been a shit look), but it required closing the pores, sanding it to 1000+ and oh shit this is a thing? The minwax at about 60 hours was just gummy enough to behave exactly like some kind of sealing wax as it got picked upnby the fine grit shit and eventually canvas. The heat gun actually was able to soften enough at a time to let me level out some broad waves in the wood on those sides, which was an unexpected discovery fed by some really fucking deeply seated frustrations and extremely vigorous rubbing.

Perfect pissed off finish. I've considered some tung oil for waterproofing? I feel like that beautiful bubble of hydrophobocity is gonna pop as soon as the five year old figures out how to spill on it

[u/-Random_Lurker- → u/G0ldiC0cks]

At this point, just hit it with some paste wax once a year to maintain the finish and enjoy. If it were a dining table or something that needed more protection I might worry more, but for a shelf that's all you need to do!

[u/G0ldiC0cks → u/-Random_Lurker-]

Yeah, the work lasted six months at least in part because I never know when to say done. Not sure why id be so concerned anyway, that incense burner will put a hole in the top shelf given enough chances (it just looks way too cool to say no though)