Working Driftwood

[OwenoWent]

Hi guys and gals,

I've had a piece of driftwood lying around the house for about five years now, bored, today I started to work it into a traditional welsh love spoon. Lacking any of the correct tools, I've hacked at it for hours with my trusty Stanley knife - only slicing myself open once!

The wood is horrible stuff to work with. Ranging from a flakey cork-like wood in places - that just falls off in chunks. To a tough solid wood in other spots that is nearly impossible to cut with a hacksaw.

I'm nowhere near finished, but I started asking my carpenter friends for advice on the finish. One suggested intensive sanding followed by a liberal application of teak oil, the other a bloody good polishing with a polishing drill-bit. They both then admitted that they've never worked with driftwood.

Has anybody got any experience on the best way to finish this?

Thanks in advance

Owen

 

[shaggystu]

are you wanting to apply a finish to change the appearance of the wood or to preserve the wood?
if it's to change the appearance, then pretty much any kind of finish you want to apply, stain, oil, wax, paint, varnish, whatever you fancy really. i'd guess that some things would be affected by the salt content of the wood but i've never found anything is noticably so.
if it's to preserve the wood then i'd say don't bother, it's been soaked in salt water for long enough to preserve it almost indefinately, traditional scandanavian "kuksas" and spoon were always preserved with salt water before being oiled AFAIK

stuart

stuart

 

[OwenoWent]

Thanks Stuart. I guess I don't know what I want to do with the finish yet. I like the rugged un-even finish of the driftwood, but once I've finished carving, I reckon I'm going to need to sand off most of the original exterior for uniformity's sake.

Think i'll go with a liberal coating of teak oil then.

Thanks again

Owen

 

[HHazeldean]

I have made some stuff from driftwood because if you get the right piece that is the right hardness then it is lovely wood and will last for ages. It has some lovely grain in it sometimes and you just need to make sure that it hasn't started to rot as your piece has in some places. I just carved mine with my knife, finished with sandpaper and then I used Linseed oil to finish it which really brought out the grain.

Hope this helps and good luck with the project!

 

[OwenoWent]

Thanks. Yes - the grain on this piece is beautiful and I'm trying to carve to complement it. I'm sure I have some linseed oil lying about from my cricket days - perhaps I'll give that a try rather than the teak oil.

Thanks - I'll post photos once I'm finally done.