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woodworkers in the crowd, finish ?


joessportster

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On 5/20/2018 at 10:34 PM, JMON said:

I did some finishing of some birch veneer not too long ago.

Hi @JMON ... awesome! Thanks for the good tips :D 

Planning on building a center speaker, similar in size to my (raw birch) Heresy's. They are fairly dark, but not even close to my walnut Forte's.  Think conditioner and walnut oil will get the "new" birch to that level?

 

IMG_2121.JPG

 

And ... if you don't mind ... always thought PWK used Baltic Birch, but ????  The plywood has 7 layers with very thin birch veneer. NOT Baltic Birch :( Wondering whether to use "this" stuff or real Baltic Birch for my center :D

 

Thanks/Cheers, Emile

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53 minutes ago, Emile said:

Think conditioner and walnut oil will get the "new" birch to that level?

Definitely not going to be dark like walnut going without some stain or dye. Test samples will be required to do the color match. Luckily birch will have a fairly even tone between the earlywood and latewood, like walnut and maple, unlike oak and pine.

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On 6/2/2018 at 1:16 PM, Emile said:

Hi @JMON ... awesome! Thanks for the good tips :D 

Planning on building a center speaker, similar in size to my (raw birch) Heresy's. They are fairly dark, but not even close to my walnut Forte's.  Think conditioner and walnut oil will get the "new" birch to that level?

 

And ... if you don't mind ... always thought PWK used Baltic Birch, but ????  The plywood has 7 layers with very thin birch veneer. NOT Baltic Birch :( Wondering whether to use "this" stuff or real Baltic Birch for my center :D

 

Thanks/Cheers, Emile

Hi Emile,

 

I agree that conditioner and oil alone will not get you the darkness level of that Heresy.  You'll need to apply stain.  However, the color I ended up with is fairly close to the color of your speakers (assuming your speakers match what I am seeing on my monitor -- which is color calibrated).  I ended up slightly darker than that but of course you can stop staining when you get the darkness level you are looking for.  If you are interested, I can find the brand and stain color that I ended up with.  FYI: I bought about 12 or so different stain colors of various brands and stained small patches of a new piece of birch plywood from Lowe's.

 

In regards to using pure baltic birch or void-free plywood with birch veneer is up to you.  The plywood will show the plies on the edges if you don't add veneer banding, but plywood will be less susceptible to warping -- the bigger the box the more important that would be.  I'd probably go with plywood if the box will be on the larger size.

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10 hours ago, JMON said:

I can find the brand and stain color that I ended up with

Hi @JMON ... Many thanks for the tips! Yes; would appreciate knowing the stain color you used ... will save me 12 tries :D 

 

Was going to leave the edges exposed ... just like my Cornwall's and Heresy's :D  Question ... are you saying the Baltic Birch is more prone to warping than the birch veneer plywood?

 

Many thanks, Emile

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I used Varathane stain with the Cognac stain color.  Don't worry too much about the color that is shown on the labels as that just gives you a general idea of what it will look like.  It will look different based on what type of wood it is applied to.

 

I may have mistaken what you were describing, but what I was trying to say is that a solid piece of wood (board) will be more likely to warp as compared to plywood. Maybe that was not what you were intending and if so, ignore my comment.

 

cognac-varathane-interior-stain-271150-6

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Here is the basic color I ended up with on birch veneer (pre-conditioned with MinWax pre-conditioner) and several coats of stain, followed by a couple coats of Watco Danish oil.  Keep in mind variances in computer monitors and photo settings, etc.  This is probably a bit darker than your speakers but the color does look close.  You can't tell from this photo, but as mentioned above, after all the hand rubbing of pre-conditioner, stain, and Danish oil, the surface is glass-smooth with a shine.

 

314tt3l.jpg

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