Recommended clear timber finishes

Hi folks - making (or at least planning) kids desks, book cases, coffee tables out of Tassie Oak (purchased a few k's at auction) and am interested in any recommendations people care to make on durable clear satin finishes. Have had good experience with some Estapol products in the past, but cant find it any more. Have noticed that some PU based products dont flatten very well unless laid on rather thick which generates other problems on anything other than horizontal surfaces - but it could be just me :?

Have you considered natural oils? With time and after having desks scratched etc, the surface can be quite easily touched up. They penetrate the timber and will highlight the colour. the great thing too is they are food safe, if your kids like mine, eat at their desks. Take a piece of timber off cut to test and see what it looks like. Box Hill is not far from Bayswater. Happy to sand it for you and then you can make up your own mind what to use.

I don't mind polyurethane for a satin finish. In the past I've used British paints clear poly and laid it 4 coats thick (paying a lot of attention to do a good job sanding between coats so as to not to get any voids in the finish and allowing each coat 24 hours to dry). It goes on pretty thick and plastic like so I then sand it back flat with 400G wet and dry and then progress through the grits til I get to 1200G.

1200G gives a pretty satin finish, is reasonably durable and the low gloss finish makes it appear less plastic coated. Anything above 1200G and I start to loose interest as this is a pretty time consuming process. The higher the grit you sand to the more gloss you get in the finish. If you want to go more gloss than 1200G you have to fork out for some micro mesh or some tripoli.

I've tried using some wax on top of this finish but at 1200G i'm not it makes much of a difference.

Some may disagree with this entire process because it's not 100% stock standard practice but anyways.

Good Luck Mate.

Spray lacquer