I am working on a rustic box for a friend of my mom and I'm having trouble picking a finish. The box is made of some kind of light colored cedar (HD wood) and will have antique brass hardware. I want to either use satin or semi gloss polyurethane (spray). What would you guys do?
A couple thoughts here…
1) You called this peice "rustic"... That, to me says satin, or even dull finish.
2) Gloss is less forgiving than semi-gloss, satin, or dull. The higher the reflections, the more painfully obvious the defects will show.
3) In the end it is your personal preference and context of the finished peice that will decide which you use.
4) Glossy finishes scream look at me! look at me! If this is not a centerpeice, but rather, an ambiance peice, the less shiny the better. IMHO.
5) I tend to use less gloss when a peice is more distressed or antiqued than when I have a more modern peice.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I guess I will go with the semi gloss and see how it looks. If I think it would look better with a satin finish, I'll dull it with some micro mesh. I'll be sure to post the results.
I regularly have this conversation with customers, and recommend going one step shiny-er than they really want. What looks too shiny today is going to dull down after a few months.
Good idea. Thanks for the advice. I tried asking her and recomended either the satin or semi gloss over the glossy poly, but she just told me to do what ever I think will look best.
I just finished a project where I started with semi-gloss. I found even with the limited amount of gloss I could see a lot of imperfections. I find the satin finish to be a little more forgiving.
I often use a gloss to amplify the wood grain then, soften the gloss with 000 steel wool and wax. A nonwoven pad will also work with wax.
I'm not much of a fan for glossy finishes, but the gloss is a clearer finish 'cause it doesn't have the flattening agents in it. Just buff the finish down as far as desired.
Semi gloss ROCKS.
Bill
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