After a lot of online searching, it seems that maple does not need to be finished to last a long time as a shelf, so long as water is not allowed to sit on it and it doesn't get wet often.
But suppose you did want to finish it, and you wanted to avoid hazardous chemicals and VOC's, what would you do?
Well, pretty much any oil can be used, olive oil is non-toxic, as is walnut oil.
What about painting? Since I couldn't talk much to my friend yesterday, I could only guess that her preference would be to have the shelf painted white, to match the interior of the closet.
I want to stay away from oil based paints, since they are traditionally high VOC (and hard to imagine otherwise, since oil paint is made of VOC's). But oil based paints are the usual recommendation for hardwood if you want to paint it at all. Typically, and especially nowadays, hardwoods are stained and oiled or stained and sealed. The oils and sealants used are typically way high VOC until cured, in my experience tung oil and the like can remain volatile and smelly for up to a year.
But modern chemistry has made latex paints that can do just about anything. I've had very good luck recently with Behr Premium Plus latex paints in interior applications. So I asked Home Depot online about the Behr Premium Plus Primer and Stain Blocker (which declares itself to be Very Low VOC on the can, and I still have some left over from the remodeling).
The correct answer seems to be that it will work on any kind of wood. (The label simply says "wood" without qualification. It also adheres to concrete, aluminum, and vinyl, so you'd think it would be OK for hardwood too.) Here is an official looking response to my question:
The upshot seems to be that beeswax doesn't penetrate any kind of wood very easily because the clumps of wax are too big. They can be broken down by many kinds of solvent, which is often done to make beeswax polishes. That makes the clumps small enough for significant absorption. Another approach is heating: melting the wax beforehand or applying heat (e.g. with a heat gun) afterwards.
While turpentine or linseed oil is routinely used to break down beeswax for better wood absorption, foodsafe oils such as walnut oil or mineral oil can also be used.
Beeswax can also be blended with palm wax (better known as Carnauba wax, used on cars) or Candelilla wax. Then one might also ask why not use Carnauba wax in the first place, it is both better absorbed and a better water repellant.
Sometimes a Beeswax misture includes both Carnauba wax and some oil such as walnut oil.
Once again, it might be better simply to use the oil! Oil has better absorption and water repelling properties. It does not form a surface coating however, but the surface coating provided by wax is very limited and needs re-waxing frequently, while an oil treatment can last a long time.
One issue with the waxy choices is that one you go that route, or with oils, applied straight to the wood, you can pretty much forget about ever using paint in the future.
So anyway, there are lots of alternatives, apparently no finishing options were lost by going with maple instead of pine, and the maple is stronger and probably would hold up better than waxed pine even if not waxed.
But suppose you did want to finish it, and you wanted to avoid hazardous chemicals and VOC's, what would you do?
Well, pretty much any oil can be used, olive oil is non-toxic, as is walnut oil.
What about painting? Since I couldn't talk much to my friend yesterday, I could only guess that her preference would be to have the shelf painted white, to match the interior of the closet.
I want to stay away from oil based paints, since they are traditionally high VOC (and hard to imagine otherwise, since oil paint is made of VOC's). But oil based paints are the usual recommendation for hardwood if you want to paint it at all. Typically, and especially nowadays, hardwoods are stained and oiled or stained and sealed. The oils and sealants used are typically way high VOC until cured, in my experience tung oil and the like can remain volatile and smelly for up to a year.
But modern chemistry has made latex paints that can do just about anything. I've had very good luck recently with Behr Premium Plus latex paints in interior applications. So I asked Home Depot online about the Behr Premium Plus Primer and Stain Blocker (which declares itself to be Very Low VOC on the can, and I still have some left over from the remodeling).
The correct answer seems to be that it will work on any kind of wood. (The label simply says "wood" without qualification. It also adheres to concrete, aluminum, and vinyl, so you'd think it would be OK for hardwood too.) Here is an official looking response to my question:
Dear Charles, Thank you for your question. BEHR PREMIUM PLUS® Stain Blocking Primer & Sealer is an excellent primer choice for unfinished hard rock maple. No. 75 primer is specifically formulated to have excellent adhesion to wood surfaces.
Another less official looking response was that I must use the oil based primer. But the response above even gives the correct Behr product number (No. 75) so I believe it is the official word.
So anyway, painting with latex paints, just as used in the entire rest-of-the-room, would be fine and dandy, or so they say.
Now another set of alternatives relates to waxy compounds. Beeswax is often used to polish maple and other hardwood furniture. It turns out, beeswax is what my friend used on her pine shelf at home, and was what she already had in mind for this shelf (which she had apparently assumed would be pine).
Beeswax is not the last word in water protection. In fact, it is barely water protection at all. Nevertheless, some folks actually use beeswax to polish gunstocks, which are subject to intense handling, heat, and moisture. Here's a great discussion on beeswax by some gun owners.
The upshot seems to be that beeswax doesn't penetrate any kind of wood very easily because the clumps of wax are too big. They can be broken down by many kinds of solvent, which is often done to make beeswax polishes. That makes the clumps small enough for significant absorption. Another approach is heating: melting the wax beforehand or applying heat (e.g. with a heat gun) afterwards.
While turpentine or linseed oil is routinely used to break down beeswax for better wood absorption, foodsafe oils such as walnut oil or mineral oil can also be used.
Beeswax can also be blended with palm wax (better known as Carnauba wax, used on cars) or Candelilla wax. Then one might also ask why not use Carnauba wax in the first place, it is both better absorbed and a better water repellant.
Sometimes a Beeswax misture includes both Carnauba wax and some oil such as walnut oil.
Once again, it might be better simply to use the oil! Oil has better absorption and water repelling properties. It does not form a surface coating however, but the surface coating provided by wax is very limited and needs re-waxing frequently, while an oil treatment can last a long time.
One issue with the waxy choices is that one you go that route, or with oils, applied straight to the wood, you can pretty much forget about ever using paint in the future.
So anyway, there are lots of alternatives, apparently no finishing options were lost by going with maple instead of pine, and the maple is stronger and probably would hold up better than waxed pine even if not waxed.
No comments:
Post a Comment