Good choice not to add color to the cabinet body...and Ill bet when you strip the top the new piece will look even closer to existing as you will be turning the old finish into a liquid, which over time has no doubt taken on some color from the wood itself. Its a fairly oily wood...that will darken somewhat over time. Ive seen these cabinets where someone has toned them and they look like H**l sometimes with a really brown almost nutmeg look. Its beautiful wood that doesn't need any color help. Corners and trim black as others have said. Ive seen guys tone the grooved band that runs across the front lower but for me that's overkill. Less is more. I think its one of the best cases the company built..right there with 130 series and others.
(This post was last modified: 07-25-2014, 08:42 AM by JimZ.)
^^Exotic hardwoods are a different sort of thing than we usually encounter...so your caution wasn't misplaced. When I lived in CA we had a great lumberyard and I was able to get some 3/8"X6"X20" pieces of nearly every available exotic including the rosewood on your case. Its interesting to see how some species behave over time with the 3 coats of lacquer I gave each one with the exception of some cocobolo I just polished by hand. This variety of rosewood does remarkably well over time with some darkening but little grain appearance deterioration. Youll be loving it when lacquer is done.
I decided to try working today.
I took off all the rest of the finish on Mikes cabinet and gave her a nice coat of sanding sealer. I dont want to darken the finish with the grain filler so I applied it first. This veneer is very very open grained. Some of the grains are long and wide. More than any other radio I have seen. It will take a few coats to fill these suckers.
Glad you are up and around so you can get back to working some. Good idea sealing prior to grain fill so you don't lean coloring in an unwanted direction.
Some of the guitar joints sell grainfillers specifically for rosewood but I imagine someone could get pretty close maybe altering something brownish with some mahogany to give it some reddish cast...I think that's what I ended up doing years ago. BTW? Where was that repair again? LOL.
Black trim is done and now I am clearing the cabinet. I am very unhappy with the finish thus far. With 3 coats of grain filler and much sanding The finish will not flatten! There are Itsy bitsey waves in it, They were there originally but I thought I could take care of them. It is like the wood was wet at some point and raised in places. I don't like this rosewood...
Anyway, I am heavy coating the cabinet and hopefully this will help the imperfections.
That specific rosewood is known to have wavy areas on occasion. The trees didn't grow tall and strait and often had pretty twisted trunks. One thing Id do to keep the wood as stable as possible is seal the inside of the cabinet twice. Wont solve the issue with the wood but its one less thing for you to think about. What you don't want are cracks of any kind in the finish due to movement. You know what I mean. You cant change the adhesive that was used 70 years ago nor the specific veneer panels used but you can make them as stable as possible.
And maybe a Novena.
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