Hi guys,

Thought you might like to see my latest project. Title says it all.

Here's a project I've been working on for friends, it's a clock Jessie rescued from a charity shop (excuse the awful phone photos):

1. Clock with no work done, note the liberal use of Poly:



2. The back-side of the clock; because of the natural fault in the wood, it was very weak (I nearly snapped it in half whilst sanding it down). So I performed some constructive surgery, by building up layers of PVA glue (wanted something strong but flexible and easy to clean up given I was pouring it in by hand and would leak through to the front). This took hours to do but was very worthwhile. The black outlines were where I'd sketched out the largest surface area possible to reinforce it with wood. Turns out I don't need to do this because of the glue:



3. Sanded to 1500 grit, multiple layers of Tung oil worked into the wood to bring out its natural beautiful lustre:



4. Now given 7 layers of beeswax, to really give it a clean shine:



5. All was well with the world. I checked back on it a few days later and can you imagine my upset when I saw the finish had now done this:



Disaster! The oil hadn't cured properly and was playing games. So back to bare wood it was (ugh) and time to start again. I bought a book on wood finishing and sought help online (woodwork forums is a great resource).

6. Redid the clock and using the forum's advice, used something other than beeswax, which I was told has a low melting point, so will attract dust and fingerprints really easily. I'm very happy with the finish now, looks much better than before and is almost mirror like:



Nice reflection there



Part of the reason I love burls is the chaotic way they capture the light, due to the lack of uniformity.



To me this is the money shot (even though it's a touch out of focus lol). It feels like silk to touch now. I'm going to clean off the residual wax that's been caught in the holes and polish that out too. I'll add more pictures once the hands have been fit and it's ready to go.