Oak burl finish, the art of enhancing the wood beauty

Oak burl is a premium wood. It is wood from oak trees which have grown in a deformed manner. The oak burl has a light brown color with small knots irregular but nice grain pattern. In the furniture manufacturer the oak burl veneer is mostly used in combination with other wood to make expensive furniture. The oak burl which has a unique and nice pattern is used as the eye catcher for the furniture product.

Although oak burl wood is very attractive but without the the proper finish it will be nothing. The oak burl need the proper finish to let the nice and attractive appearance is showed maximally. The oak burl should be finished in transparent finish according to its unique grain pattern and knots, enhancing it to make nice looking product.

Now in this article we want to share the oak burl finish to make an antique transparent brown finish we did on the oak burl veneer panel. We didn’t do finishing for the furniture product, but the finishing step in here can be adopted to the wood furniture as well.

unfinished oak panel 

Here is the finishing process.

• Glue sizing.

Oak burl veneer has high risk of splitting and cracking. His wood structure make the wood is  brittle and easy moved. To minimize the risk of veneer cracking we did a glue sizing. We layered thin glue on the top of the veneered panel. The glue size was not purposed to make smooth wood surface but mainly to make the oak burl veneer to be more stable. The glue will cover the veneer and make it more stable to make less risk of wood crack. 

• The stain application.

We wanted to make medium brown wood color finish, then we used a brown dye wood stain. The dye stain is the good choice since it is absorbed by the wood to make a transparent, bright color.

The dye stain was applied by wet spray to the entire surface of the wood. To enhance the beauty of the oak burl, then we did smudge pad to the stain layer. We took a cloth, wet it with alcohol and padded the cloth to the stain. The was an uneven coloration according to the irregular pattern of oak burl grain and knots.

To make the stronger burl effect looked, then we did a highlights at the stain. We used steel wool to erase some stain  to enhance its irregular pattern of the grain.

hand pad the stain 

highlight the stain

• Wash coat application.

coat coating was layering to prepare the surfaces for glaze application. One layer of wash coat was sprayed evenly to the wood surface. We let the wash coat for few minutes to dry and scuff sanded the wash coat to prepare smooth wood surface for glaze application.

• Glaze application.

A dark brown glaze was used to make a deep and rich finishing color and to make the finish is looked more antique. The glaze was poured at was dry brushed (stippled) at the surface. The dry brushed glaze was also done to burnish and  darken the edges and corner to make more antique looked. 

dry brush the glaze

• Sealer application.

Sealer is needed to build the film finish and to give protection to the finish color and appearance. We sprayed 2 layer of wet coat sealer on the glaze layer. To times sealer application is needed to make the enough film built. 
Once the sealer was dry we sanded the sealer layer and sprayed the 2nd sealer. We let the sealer dry and sanded the sealer layer to prepare film layer for the top coat application.

oak burl finish panel

• Application of top coat.

We used a medium gloss top coat for the last coat. Forty five sheen top coat was sprayed evenly as the last coat. And the result was a antique brown transparent oak burl finish with nice and attractive appearance