Has anyone decided to take part in the FWW furniture building contest?

If your not familiar the rules are pretty basic. Must be Maple. Should
be built from one 10in x 10ft x 8/4 piece or not more than 17bf of
separate boards. Can be curly, birdseye, hard or soft but only Maple.
It can be dyed and stained.

I wish it was a wood I had better luck with finishing. I just can't
feature that stark white clean lacquer on Maple thing. I make butcher
tops but very few whole Maple pieces ever. I guess it's time to start
doing some sketches and learning how to get some color and character
into that stuff if I want to win.

BW

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:48:09 -0800 (PST), "SonomaProducts.com"
wrote:

I wish it was a wood I had better luck with finishing. I just can't
feature that stark white clean lacquer on Maple thing.

Use tiger and dye it:

http://www.dargate.com/241_auction/241_images/1669.jpg

On Jan 11, 3:48*pm, "SonomaProducts.com" wrote:
Has anyone decided to take part in the FWW furniture building contest?

If your not familiar the rules are pretty basic. Must be Maple. Should
be built from one 10in x 10ft x 8/4 piece or not more than 17bf of
separate boards. Can be curly, birdseye, hard or soft but only Maple.
It can be dyed and stained.

I wish it was a wood I had better luck with finishing. I just can't
feature that stark white clean lacquer on Maple thing. I make butcher
tops but very few whole Maple pieces ever. I guess it's time to start
doing some sketches and learning how to get some color and character
into that stuff if I want to win.

BW

Water-based 'stain' works fairly well but doesn't penetrate more than
the thickness of a wisp of smoke so it is tough to buff out between
finish coats.

Even better is following up the dye with BLO to give the grain depth.
But I agree it is a PITA.

Good luck, you'll have to let me know if you win cause I don't
subscribe yet.