Page 55 - Wood Review Dec 202 Full issue

TECHNIQUE
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Shiny or matt? Contrast or simple homogeneity? Maybe one part could be open-pored while another is close- pored in order to highlight a duality? Understanding finishing techniques and their potential can help you achieve and embellish your design. They are another tool in your design tool belt. Do not ignore them.
The bushfire vases
After many design iterations, I settled on making three small decorative vases with simple but organic shapes. The serenity of their shaping would reflect the calm of a recently burned landscape, and not the violence and danger of an uncontrolled blaze.
I decided to burn the bottoms of the vases for colour, texture and thematic reasons. Bushfires often burn just at ground level.
The smallest vase
On the smallest vase, I kept it simple. After burning the lower half until
cracks began to form, I cleaned it off and polished it with shellac using a cloth rubber. I used the rubber to pull the loose black carbon from the burned areas into the cracks and pores of the upper half of the vase until the whole piece was dark.
The upper half is more heavily polished and smooth with a low sheen, while the lower half remains more matt
and textured. To finish it off, I made
a small red glass dribble to resemble bloodwood gum, which often comes out of the tree after it has been damaged. The glass piece was shaped and then glued onto the surface with an epoxy. This also helped ensure a red element across all three pieces.
Practice and experimentation
Turning is a great aid for practising finishing techniques, because the ability to quickly produce finish-
able products reduces concern about stuffing up projects at a late stage. The
more complicated the technique, the more practice it will require. The more techniques you practice, the easier it will be to include them in your design.
Gilding and French polishing are great examples – if you’ve never tried them, you probably won’t think of them in the design phase. It won’t take someone long to explain to you how to gild or French polish, but getting the feel of these materials takes experience.
The Qld maple vase
I had tried some of the techniques used here but not fully practised them. In order to darken the Qld maple vase but not blacken it I used ammonia and then Australian grasstree (Xanthorrhoea) resin.
I wiped on the cloudy ammonia (an ammonia and water mixture) and after five minutes washed away as much as I could with water. When dry, the surface had pleasantly darkened and muted the brighter pink tones in the timber.
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