Finishing lacewood and curly maple


youeatwaffles

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Hello everyone! I am in the middle of making a jewelry cabinet for my girlfriend. It sports some highly figured lacewood and curly maple. I plan to pop the grain with some transtint and shellac. As far as finishing, I'm  a bit concerned about finishing the lacewood. I want to go with some shellac because I want something durable. What have people done to finish lacewood? It's pretty porous. Thanks

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I just got done working with lacewood a few weeks ago.  I was forced to dye the whole piece because of a color (matching) issue...you can see the results here:

 

 

Lacewood figure doesn't "pop" the way curly maple figure does...it's ray fleck just like you find in white oak...medullary rays.  What you have in curly maple is undulating end grain, which soaks in more finish (or dye) than the long grain it traverses, which makes it pop.  Won't happen on lacewood.  I'd just wipe Arm-R-Seal on the whole thing and call 'er good.  The oil will pop the figure in the maple and will intensify the figure in the lacewood as well by adding depth.  Or you can go ahead and use the shellac and dye trick to pop the maple, but I wouldn't recommend doing that to the lacewood.  You said you wanted "durable"...shellac isn't really that durable.  Varnish will be much tougher.

 

All that said, I'm gonna suggest you don't actually have lacewood there, but leopardwood.  Pretty much indistinguishable aside from leopardwood's darker color.  My contemplation bench came out looking more like leopardwood in the end.  See my pics again for a reference of what unfinished lacewood looks like.

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I just got done working with lacewood a few weeks ago.  I was forced to dye the whole piece because of a color (matching) issue...you can see the results here:

 

 

Lacewood figure doesn't "pop" the way curly maple figure does...it's ray fleck just like you find in white oak...medullary rays.  What you have in curly maple is undulating end grain, which soaks in more finish (or dye) than the long grain it traverses, which makes it pop.  Won't happen on lacewood.  I'd just wipe Arm-R-Seal on the whole thing and call 'er good.  The oil will pop the figure in the maple and will intensify the figure in the lacewood as well by adding depth.  Or you can go ahead and use the shellac and dye trick to pop the maple, but I wouldn't recommend doing that to the lacewood.  You said you wanted "durable"...shellac isn't really that durable.  Varnish will be much tougher.

 

All that said, I'm gonna suggest you don't actually have lacewood there, but leopardwood.  Pretty much indistinguishable aside from leopardwood's darker color.  My contemplation bench came out looking more like leopardwood in the end.  See my pics again for a reference of what unfinished lacewood looks like.

I asked the gentleman at the hardwood dealer if it was lacewood as a doublecheck and he said it was after reviewing the order. I guess durability wasn't a good word choice, I meant more durable than danish oil which is my usual finish. I plan to pop just the maple. Do I need to do any pore filling on the lace (or leapord?)? Thanks for the speedy response!

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