Finish for Carved Picture Frame.

[MikeG]

Hi Everyone,

I have been a reader of this forum for a long time and this is my first post.

My daughter purchased a timber picture frame in Kasmir last year. It has some finely detailed carving. The size of the assembled frame is 880 x 732 x 20mm. The type of timber is unkown for certain, but it has a colour similar to walnut. It is also weighty.

I have been asked to put a protective finish on the frame so that it can be used for a mirror.

My question is what finish do you think I should use given the level of fine detail. I do not want to "fill in" the detail. In other words I would like to use a very lightweight clear finish that retains all of the detail.

I have a attached some photographs.

Any guidance will be very much appreciated.
Thanks
Mike

[MacS]

You could use one of the "wipe on oil finishes" or you could use an aerosol of clear lacquer, these clear coatings come in sheens of gloss, satin, or flat. because of the carvings I would suggest using the lacquer aerosol.

Good Luck

Mac S

[gabacus]

if the frame will be exposed to moisture, such as in a bathroom, then you will probably want to go with a urathane type finish. aerosol would probably be the best way to apply it.

if the frame will not be exposed to moisture, if it will just be in the lounge or bedroom, i would say just use some tung oil. tung oily soaks into the fibres of the wood and if you fill in any holes with pools of oil you can just use a fresh rag to drain it out. tung is pretty easy to apply too. just use a cheap brush to get it on the wood, let it soak for 5 to 10 mins then wipe off the excess with a clean rag. let it dry for 24 hours then burnish the surface with 0000 steel wool and apply again. repeat the process as required until you get the finish you want.

[ubeaut]

It looks like it has been stripped as there appears to be some colour variances in the timber and also a fair bit of filler and the odd bit missing. You may need to wet the surface to see what the filler and other miss coloured areas will come up like. It is possible the filler will get a lot more pronounced if left uncoloured. Wetting will show this and will show the colour of the timber you need to match the filler to.

Personally I would be using shellac, either regular (http://www.ubeaut.com.au/flakes.html#fp1) or Dewaxed White (http://www.ubeaut.com.au/dewaxed.html) brushed or sprayed. Followed up with either EEE Ultra Shine (http://www.ubeaut.com.au/eee.htm), Traditional Wax (http://www.ubeaut.com.au/trad.html) or both.

Blatant advertising for what I know will work and has done many times over.

Cheers - Neil :U

[flynnsart]

A soft shoe polish brush can be useful to buff up an oil finish on releif carvings

donna

[MikeG]

Thanks everyone for your input.

I've been busy renovating a bathroom. Now I have to decide what approach to take to this frame.

Thanks again for the replies.