One of my colleagues from work asked me to fabricate a display stand for a presentation Ice Axe that he wanted to display. Another colleague has a similar stand that I used for a model and so made a departure from round wood for a bit to make this. I was able to use my Blade Runner to cut the saddles out of Oak and the plank itself is oak as well. My colleague wanted a cherry stain and a nice satin finish. The prototype had the saddles screwed in from the bottom of the plank and, I suppose that was OK, but I decided not to mar the bottom of this beautiful plank of oak with screw holes and used dowels to attach the saddles. The Ice Axe doesn’t weight more than a few ounces, and I suspect… I hope… the dowels with be durable enough for the long run. The piece took no time at all to make, but the finishing took several days. I used a nice product from Minwax called a Gel Stain. This went on very evenly and only took one coat. I chose not to use a sanding sealer because it is hardwood. Sanding Sealers are absolutely critical to seal the grain on softwoods for staining, but I didn’t realize that I would have a problem with raised grain in oak.
I sanded to 600 grit and fine tuned the saddles to ensure a good fit with the Axe. The stain didn’t raise the grain, but the Varathane did. In total there are 5 coats of varathane on the top and sides (4 on the bottom). I had to sand between coats and was finally, mostly able to sand down the grain so that the varathane is nice and smooth. After a few days of hardening, I will take it in for Bruce.
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