Maple Shelving - conquering maple!

Thanks for the information full post. The shelves look great and I will be trying your finishing routine myself!

-- Behind the Bark is a lot of Heartwood----Charles, Centennial, CO

congrats…. seems to me thats still a lot of sanding. I don’t think I sanded that much all of my projects combined :) but bottom line – it gets you the result you wanted, which matters most.

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Thanks for the instruction. Guess I’ll mark this one for future reference. Congrats on conquering the beast ;-))

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

In the beginning of your story you state that you did too much sanding ….how much more did you do than you described in the second part of your story ?
Being a newbie , I’m also a little confused if you stained the shellac or the wood ?

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

Well I’m glad my trials helped you out and you got the results you wanted! :)

I’m probably making things complicated, but since you seemed to want just a bit of color, maybe you could simply tint the shellac? But I’m sure you’ve had enough experimenting, so I should probably stay quiet. lol.

-- Beth

Seems odd to me to put stain on shellac too, but if it works for you I guess that is all that matters. Thanks for the unusual tip.

-- Mike. mwurm13@yahoo.com

I definitely stained the shellac. It was driving me crazy not to get even staining so I was determined to get that route working.

Beth – for sure next time I will try the tints. Being the first time using shellac, and never having used dyes before I was keeping it safe.

Dusty56 – in fact… before I was sanding the boards for at least an hour each and not getting nice results. I have cut the time in half and have better results. PurpLev is right, it’s probably still too much sanding but I am sure with more practice I will find a better technique.

I think this was more an experiment in how to get 50% shellac to work for me to stop the maple from being blotchy. Three coats was the charm.

good job! I’m glad you found a system that worked for you. I needed my maple to be much darker so I went a different way (dye, shellac, stain) but that seemed to work for me. I updated my thread to show what I did, but have yet to load pictures, I will later on.

After awhile you will hear the term “low level lighting” . You can actually see the “scratches” left by your coarser grit sandpaper . As you go up to finer grits , stop sanding when you can no longer see the scratches from the previous grit. You can actually go to such extremes that the finest grit papers will actually “burnish” your wood. You don’t want this to happen if you’re going to apply a finish other than maybe wax because the finish needs something to adhere to if you want it to stay on your project.
I’m also concerned about your use of 80 grit to remove “machining marks”.....What’s up with that ? Are your planer knives nicked or dull ? Are you starting out with Rough Sawn lumber ? The last time I used 80 grit was to remove polyurethane from my flooring : ) I can’t imagine going from 80 grit all the way up to 600 grit !
God bless you : )

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

Dusty, I can’t speak for Kate, but I’ve been using 60 grit on maple boards (not ply) to get out my saw marks and burns. I’m using an old wonky saw, and well, I’m a noob. lol! It amazing, but the wood is so hard, even the 60 grit takes a while to get the marks out and it doesn’t even chew up the wood. (With soft wood, it would be a different story!) On the ply, I start at 120 since it is so smooth already and I don’t want to screw up the veneer. :)

-- Beth

Yup, what Beth says…. and I think my planer is definitely a culprit leaving perpendicular marks. We’ve played with the adjustments quite a bit but it still is not perfect. I have to give Delta a talkin’ to. The planer is almost brand new.

I am also starting out with rough lumber. I am the type who made lye, just to make soap, just to know what that’s all about.

Carry on , Ladies : ) Have a great day !

ps: How did your soap turn out ?

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

The soap was relatively like Ivory Soap, but less lather. I was just thankful it did not burn me!

On another note, I suppose you could say I have a lot of grit? LOL. Sorry about that.

A good sense of humor is nothing to apologize for : )

-- You know you're getting old when you know the difference between you're (you are) and your (belonging to you) AND how to use them in a sentence .

Thanks for the tip, I’m working with some red maple. I think I’m going to try your formula

-- Which way did they go? Tell me, tell me I must know I'm there leader!!