# Popping curl on Ambrosia Maple



## rshep55 (Dec 30, 2008)

I picked up a highly figured ambrosia tiger maple board at the Woodworks show and would like to apply the curl popping techiques used by "woodwhisperer" and other LumberJocks. Has anyone tried any of these "popping" techiques on ambrosia and spalted maple? I'm concerned about the what it might do to the spalt and ambrosia detail. I can not test on a piece of the board because I need all of the board for a table top.


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## gwurst (Nov 28, 2007)

Generally, a penetrating oil (Danish oil, etc.) does a good job of popping the grain. If you're really concerned I'd go buy another piece of similar material and test finishing techniques on it. Resaw a thicker piece into thinner slabs to maximize your options.


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## douglas2cats (Mar 31, 2008)

I dont know what the Whisperers method is, but I experimented a couple years ago trying various things over curly maple. Most of the samples were tried with various colors of dye, then sanded back off until the color on the non-figured areas was pretty much where it started before the dye. I was trying a more muted approach that's mentioned for doing candy-apple finishes on guitars using black dye to see if I could pull out the curl without otherwise coloring the wood. This did darken up the curl some and did look good, but in the long run I got just as good results with the ones that I applied superblond shellac to or boiled linseed oil without the extra sanding off.


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## Radish (Apr 11, 2007)

SealCoat shellac from Zinnzer. Won't yellow up like the oils. If it's really punky, it might swallow up a few first coats, but after you build a film you will see the chatoyance winkin' at you.


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## Kindlingmaker (Sep 29, 2008)

Charles Neil has a video that shows this very well.


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

I would go with Zinsser shellac like Dpuglas stated. I built my kitchen cabinets with Ambrosia Maple and they were beautiful.

Since sold the house.

I'd send you some scrap to try, but I've givven it all to Greg3G for use in his boxes as internal dividers. If you are still in a bind I'd search for somemore and try to get you a sample.


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## rshep55 (Dec 30, 2008)

Thanks for the replies.

Greg, Doug S. and Kindlingmaker, i watched Charles Neil video. I'm not sure what will happed to the ambrosia coloring if I apply a dye and sand it off, as he suggests or Danish oil.

Douglas, does SealCoat make the grain stand out better that WaterLox tung oil blend?

Karson, I will search my scrap wood bin for a piece of ambrosia maple and test it. Thanks.


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## douglas2cats (Mar 31, 2008)

Ron
I found some pics of the experiment though I didnt think to try the shellac until later and didnt get a pic.
The 4 on the left were dyed then sanded off with no other finish on them. The one labelled BLO is boiled linseed oil, then there's a bare wood one for comparison. I'd have to double check to make sure but I think the dye abvreviations were CH=Cherry (not too sure about that one), RA=Russet Amber, MA=Medium Amber, and OR=Orange.









Same but bigger

















I would try the SealCoat first and see if it doesn't do what you want. I used mixed shellac but got nice results from that without the extra sanding effort.


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## rshep55 (Dec 30, 2008)

Thanks for your replies, everyone. I'm heading for the shop!


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