Mathew first asks:

This is my first ever project and your video on raised panels and many of the others have helped me a ton. I have one problem though. I have this chest made of maple and cherry, and I want a warm finish but don’t want to dye or stain the wood. I’ve been told to use shellac diluted, just deft finish and Danish oil. Any help would be so awesome. I would love to share the finished project that you have helped me make with the time you spend on the videos. Thank you very much.

And here’s my response: There are a number of things you can do with the finish. All depends on what you are comfortable applying and what kind of look you are going for. All the finishes that were recommended to you will work just fine.

Personally, I have two suggestions for you. And both will make use of shellac as a sealer coat. Both maple and cherry exhibit blotching when hit with oil-based stains and finishes. So the shellac sealer coat prevents that to some extent. And if you use an orange or garnet shellac, you could add a good bit of color that will have the effect of a very light stain. If you topcoat with something like Danish oil, you have to be careful not to put too much shellac on the surface. If its sealed off, the Danish oil will have trouble curing. So I recommend a single coat of 1lb cut shellac. Sand it smooth afterward, and then rub in a couple coats of Danish oil for a nice hand-rubbed look. But be sure to practice on scrap because you need to find the balance between the shellac concentration, the danish oil, and the amount of blotching that appears.

Now if you want some more protection, I recommend using a simple varnish. Wiping varnishes like Arm-R-Seal or Minwax Wiping Varnish are both good options. Another advantage of using a varnish with no oil in it is that you don’t have to worry too much about how much the shellac seals the surface. The varnish will dry either way. So you can seal the surface as much as you want, avoiding blotching completely.

You mentioned Deft finish, and I am assuming that is Deft lacquer. This is also an acceptable topcoat if you are comfortable applying lacquer. The project looks great so far and I don’t think you can go wrong with any of the above finishes. Good luck!

And here is Mathew’s finished project:

I finished the project a couple of weeks ago for my cousin’s wedding gift. It is a chest made of maple and cherry. When it came down to the finish, I used a mix of 50/50 bullseye shellac as a base layer. Once it dried I lightly sanded the entire piece. I then used some Danish oil and rubbed in one coat. I then used one coat of DEFT clear wood finish in a semi-gloss. I sanded with 300 grit paper after and then sprayed another layer of the DEFT. I sanded that with 800 grit paper and then sprayed another layer. I sanded that very lightly and then sprayed one last layer. I then buffed it out and that was it. Took about a week. I don’t know if it was the best way to go about it, but it came out nice and smooth. I couldn’t complain for my first project. I have always wanted to start doing this on my own so I bought a few tools and this is what came out. I spent several hours on The Wood Whisperer website watching videos and talking with other members in the chat room. I can’t begin to tell you how much everybody helped me out. Thank you everyone for all the advice and thank you Marc for the help and inspiration to try something new.

Here are some of the pictures I had promised. The one with rustic walnut and cherry is the one I built for the Buckeye Cruise for Cancer that will be auctioned off in February 2010 and the other two are the ones I built for the kids. I fell in love with the walnut and maple one and I plan on building one similar for myself. Please tell the story as it may give others inspiration that have cancer or a family member with it.

The Chest of Drawers

My wife’s sister asked that I build her son a chest of drawers similar to one that she had seen in a furniture store near her house. It was a painted item of poor quality. This would be my first opportunity to design and create a piece from start to finish.

I started with the overall dimensions and began creating the shop drawings for the piece. I am a Professional Land Surveyor by trade so I was able to utilize Autocad for the drawings. I went through every piece in my home to get different ideas on how to design the case for the piece. The design I ended up using seems pretty simple once I broke it down into the components. The sides are a frame and panel between the two legs. The supports for the drawers are a simple frame design and really worked well. The top is an edge glued panel of the best stock I had on hand.

The drawers are constructed using a type of locking rabbet joint in front and dado in the rear. As can be seen on the photos I reinforced all interior corners with small mitered pieces just to add more strength to the joints. This piece is going to a small child and I wanted to be sure he could not pull the drawers apart. The drawer slides are full extension glides. A little unusual for a furniture piece but again I wanted to make sure that if he was to lean down on the drawers or to climb on them that they would support the load and not give way.

The drawer fronts for the top three drawers and the middle two were cut from one piece of stock to insure grain continuity across the piece. Really makes the piece stand out when completed. All joinery on this project are Domino’s from Festool. Thanks again to Dennis Kent of Woodcraft for suggesting this tool for my shop. It is an awesome tool that makes quick, strong and accurate joinery.

The finish was lots of fun to watch come together. The cherry really comes to life during the finishing process. I started by sealing the raw cherry with a wash coat of shellac to help control blotching. This was followed by two coats of Minwax “Cherrywood” gel stain. The gel stain was easy to work with and ended up being very transparent. It really allowed the grain to show through on the completed project. The second coat was when the character of the cherry began to show. The top coat is lacquer sprayed on with my Earlex HVLP system. Multiple coats were applied to allow wet sanding and hand polishing up to the desired sheen. I think the top came out nicely once the sanding and polishing were completed. Antique brass hardware completed the look and matched nicely with the cherry.

The Doll Desk

My daughter Sarah has several American Girl dolls and loves to play school with them. She asked daddy for a desk for “Julie” and I set out to see what I could come up with.

This project was built pretty much on the fly. Sarah had seen an old type desk at our church and wanted Julie’s to be like it. I decided that since I had some nice Red Oak left from from another project I would use it. The desk compartment is a simple box with a slant top that opens to storage below. A pencil groove was routed in the flat area near the top. Corners are simple rabbets and the bottom is tempered hard board floating in a groove milled into the sides.

The chair is sized to fit Julie and utilized some thin stock that was left over from another project where I had resawn some oak for another use. The sides utilize a half lap joint and are surprisingly strong. The seat and back stretchers are the thin resawn stack that I mentioned earlier. The chair support and desk support is again built from some scrap pieces I had around the shop from larger pieces. The original thought was to have the vertical support for the desk and chair be the only pieces under each. Once the pieces were assembled it became obvious that more support was needed laterally to prevent each from racking. I added the mitered braces to help with the flex of the thin stock. I finished the piece with two coats of satin polyurethane.

Now Sarah and Julie can play school in style!

Just thought I would send in some pictures of my latest project. I built it for my girlfriend to use as a tack trunk to keep at the barn where she boards her horse. It is made from walnut with a aromatic cedar bottom for both the trunk and sliding tray. I went with a no fuss finish using Watco Danish oil. This was my first attempt at hand cut dovetails and I think they came out pretty well. I think your website is great. Keep up the good work. Thanks for your time

I just thought I’d send you this, I’ve been working very hard on it, and it’s been a great project for me. I’ve learned so much from it. My Mom and Dad wanted me to make them a wooden chest to display her quilts(she’s a big Quilter), and this is what I cam up with. I found the design online, and I changed it up a bit to make it a little nicer. The wood is Mesquite, 3/4″. With Stained aspen panels for the back and bottom. I used 1/4″ glass for the front and sides. The top was held together with 4 biscuits each and a lot of Tightbond III, and the frame is held together with Pocket screws with walnut plugs. The front and side frames are held together with screws(3 each) with walnut plugs as well. I put a 45 degree chamfer on the top edge to give it a finishing touch. Glass was held in with Liquid nails mirror adhesive. And the hinges are solid brass. I also installed the spring loaded hinges to help the lid lift up and down, and to keep it from over extending(worked out great). I ended up deciding to build two of them(just as fast as building one), so that my mom has some nice new furniture in her living room. And the will look great instead of her cheap stuff that she has now. They are finished in the photos, except for a few finishing touches like getting all the excess liquid nails off of the glass, and the bottom being yet to be placed inside the second one. I put two coats of tung oil, and three coats of poly satin on all the surfaces to give it a strong protection. I think that they came out just great. This was my first real project, and my first furniture project ever. I’ve never done any fine wood working before, and I think I did very well for my first time. All the edges are clean and smooth, and you can’t feel any of the joints or plugs. The top feels like one piece when you run your hand over it. No gaps or anything. Let me know if you have any questions about the project. I finished both of them in about three weeks worth of afternoons. I had work till 3pm Mon-Fri so I only had a few hours each day. I Finished up just in time for X-mas.