General Finishes

When I finished this small fruit bowl I first thought about the wood, is it a tight grain wood? Is it hard, soft? And then I made the decision of what finishing process I was going to use. In this case I decided to wet sand with walnut oil all the way from 180-1200 grit, I did this because I have had a positive experience from doing this on birch wood which was the wood of choice in this case. After I had wet sanded the bowl I let the oil really soak in and dry for a couple of days before applying the final finish. After a couple of days I applied a thick coat of reneissance wax to the bowl and then I used a piece of paper to spread it out evenly. I then set the lathe to a speed of about 2000 rpm and buffed the wax with a paper towel, this left a really nice glossy finish. After I had applied the coat of wax I let the bowl dry for a couple of hours before I came back and buffed the bowl with some cardboard which gave the bowl a really nice satin finish.