Finishing Beetle Kill Pine - What do you use?

Camp,

Although I’ve not personally worked any Beetle Kill Pine maybe I can help by suggesting you visit the sites below, check out their sites and read the techniques used by these two Artisans.

RockyBlue
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/68133
-and-
Monte Pittman
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/67637

Work Safely and have Fun – Len

-- Mother Nature should be proud of what you've done with her tree. - Len ...just north of a stone's throw from the oHIo, river that is, in So. Indiana.

Thanks Len!

-- - Steve Campbell

I would be stretching it to say I was a pro but I have worked with beetle kill pine a lot in the past. The biggest problem I had with finishing it was that it was a very “thirsty” wood and would suck up anything put on it. I discovered that using a pre-conditioner worked very well. It would get sucked into the wood and set up an inner layer that would keep the wood from sucking up quite as much as normal. The kind of pre-conditioner I used was an oil based one from General Finishes. I’m sure other brands work just as well but I was very satisfied with this one. After that dried (it is an oil based product so it takes a while) adding any final finish layers was much easier. I generally use a poly finish on top and it works well also.

I hope that helps.

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

Rockyblue uses epoxy bar top coating on tables and UV resistant polyurethane on virtually everything else. I use the UV resistant polyurethane on everything at this point, but I want to switch to bar top epoxy also for tables & benches. It’s messy if not handled properly and my first go around I didn’t. Ugh! Rockyblue knows A LOT more than I do, but I’ll answer anything I can for you.

-- Mother Nature created it, I just assemble it. - It's not ability that we often lack, but the patience to use our ability