Getting a reasonable appearance from unfinished wood

[Mickeym]

Hi,

It's been a while since I've been on here and like I've mentioned previously, I'm very limited with my knowledge regarding framing but it's something I'm very interested in and at some stage in the future hope to go on a basic framing course as I'd like to make custom frames to use for my artwork.

At the moment I'm buying an unfinished wood frame online. There seem to be limited suppliers for unfinished wood frames. These are are the frames that particularly engraver like to use and those that do wood pyrography. I myself print directly onto wood to get a similar effect but use a black colour only.

The issue I have is the unfinished wood just looks very bland. I've tried varnishing the wood but I'm possibly using too dark of a varnish as I only have dark walnut. The black colour ends up becoming very dull.

Is there a beeswax or any type of wax that could bring out a little shine to the overall frame or is there a recommended water based varnish that isn't too dark that would do the job.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[vintage frames]

Gulp!
Where do we start?

The first thing to notice is that your walnut varnish is just sinking into the wood and if you were to paint on another coat, the colour would obliterate the printing.
The easiest thing i can think of is to buy a walnut stain and dilute it before use.
If its oil based, then dilute with white spirit: water - based then use some water. It will say on the tin - how to clean the brush etc.
Test it on some scrap wood until you have a suitable colour.

Make sure you have sanded the frame surface with fine grit sandpaper.

Leave the frame overnight to dry.

Now you need to build up a shine.
You could use Danish Oil but that require lots of coats.
You could paint the frame with Sanding Sealer, lightly sand it and the apply two coats of CLEAR varnish.
Or you could apply two coats of Rustin's Plastic Coat, sanding lightly between coats.
The latter will give you a glass like finish.

[JFeig]

Not all wood is the same.

No matter what you do to some wood species, if they have no impressive grain structure they will not give you want you are looking for.
Some woods, from an artistic standpoint, are ment to be painted while others will allow you to have that "furniture finish". What type of wood moulding did you start off with?

As Vintage Frames stated... a lot of elbow grease is needed.

[Justintime]

I started with bare Oak and Ash. Grain match lengths and cut short long short long for the best match at corners. Join, random orbital sand with 180 then 320 Mirka Abranet, then wax with your choice of Liberon Black Bison waxes. Or add a stain before waxing, or add a stain and rub back before waxing. Make up some Van Dyke crystals, add some coloured acrylics like burnt umber etc. The possibilities are endless!
@gesso&bolle posted a good picture of his range of finished barewoods a while back.

[vintage frames]

Justintime correctly points out the simplest solution of just rubbing on some tinted wax.

I'd still be inclined to seal the wood first with some sanding sealer. This will keep the wax on the surface and so give you a quicker shine.

[Gesso&Bole]

Here’s a selection of really quick and easy finishes I offer on oak. I do usually do as Justin says above, but usually shellac before the wax

[prospero]

If you are using Obeche or similar it's often better to apply a 'faux' woodgrain finish using acrylic paints.
You need to prepare the surface first to build up a smooth base. Fill the pores with fine-surface filler, sand
smooth and apply two coats of emulsion. Sand. Apply a solid 'base' colour. Yellow Ochre is good. Then apply a
quite dilute coat of a darker colour. Raw/Burnt Umber is good for a natural colour. Drag this with a soft, dry
brush as it dries. There is a bit of a knack to this. With a bit of practice you can get good very good results.
This is a very old technique and ropey old timber was often converted into something more exotic looking.

Acrylic paint takes a wax polish very well.

This is Obeche transmuted into Bird's Eye Maple.

[prospero]

For harder woods - Oak, Ash and suchlike a few coats of Shellac followed by a good wax polish works well.
You can colour the wood before applying the shellac with woodstain but the more transparent colours in acrylic
paint can be mixed and applied very thinly to get a more vibrant effect.

* Usually a couple of coats of shellac is sufficient, but the more coats you do the deeper the shine you can produce.
When each coat is dry sand it before doing the next.

[vintage frames]

Shellac, shellac, shellac.

Everyone's heard of it but not that many want to use it.
If you want to bring out the true beauty of a prime wood, then shellac is the way to go.

There are only three things you need to think about when using shellac -

1, have a good quality watercolour brush.
2, dilute the shellac 1/2 and 1/2 with meths.
3, have a box of nitrile gloves.

Here are some Birds Eye Maple frames I made recently.
These might be of interest to anyone who suffers the purgatory that is hand finishing.
They are different from the simulated effect that Prospero was able to achieve, but show how the use of shellac finishes can bring out the depth and colour of original birds-eye maple frames.

By the way, on Gesso&Bole's photo, I like the oak with walnut stain, and the oak with clear wax but what is the interesting one just below that?

[Gesso&Bole]

That one is done with ‘Driftwood’ milk paint and clear wax.
I use milk paint because I like the tone it gives to wood, but also because it is very quick and easy. The paint comes in powder form, and it mixes with equal volume of water.

For that finish ( and most of the others) I do the following

Make frame
Round the corners and fill with Tightbond/sawdust
Sand with 180
Paint with 1 or 2 coats of milk paint (I do this in one go, drying with the hot air gun) only takes 5 minutes on a smallish frame
Sand with 320
Shellac (I wipe it on with a rag) at least one coat, usually 2, but 3 if I want high shine
Coat of black bison wax. Rub it off after a couple of minutes, then a second coat of wax that I leave on for an hour or two, or overnight.
Polish off with a rag cut from my old pyjamas.

[Zac]

*note to self: buy pyjamas