Should I Varnish or Wax or oil American Oak ?

jollyme

Well the title pretty well says it all. We've just had untreated american oak delivered for a balustrade. I want to have a mat or satin finish but definitely not a glossy. I want to keep the nautural colour. Also, it would be good if it was not a skilled job.
Does anyone have any advice/experience/suggestions??

jollyme

Any thoughts anyone? Please

Enterprise_1701C

I would not wax oak personally, it would detract from the finish, and could be difficult to re-do. I have some lovely oak furniture which was oiled, it brings the colour out lovely, but then I did not have to do it myself! My personal choice on this would be to wax it, again it will bring the grain out and allow the colour to mature nicely.

I am not a pro - just a lover of oak.

Torry_Quine

Not quite the same but we've just had new windows fitted with the internal sills and surround in wood and so faced this same problem. In the end we went with beeswax and are very pleased with the result. It was easy to apply and has left it with a lovely finish. As we're not experienced at all felt it was worth it.

ariba10

With a hard wood dado rail and two hardwood doors we put up 20 years ago we used a wax.

Carnauba Wax I believe. Put it on with 0000 grade steel wool and buffed with the same grade.

A very good finish and has needed very little maintenance. (even with a multitude of grandchildren)

HelenDaveKids

We really like danish oil. It protects it and looks healthy. Easy to apply, wipe on with rag.

Atelier

It depends upon the look you want.

I tend to find that Danish oil darkens the wood so gives a slightly more rustic feel than wax or varnish. However it is really easy to apply, just apply it with a cloth and wipe it off. After 3 coats you get a hard semi sheen finish.

I haven't got the knack with wax and it seems to take forever to build up the finish so what I tend to do is to varnish the surface with a couple of coats and then apply a couple of wax coats over that before buffing up.

None of these techniques are hard and as long as you work on the principle of multiple thin coats of finish then they come up nice.

HTH

latecomer

We've just had a lot of solid oak fitted and we used a clear varnish and I think it looks great. But before we made the decision to do this we tried out various finishes on some offcuts until we got something we liked.