Finishing The Purse Tree

I applied a second coat of stain yesterday and it helped a little.  As you can see the maple does have some light and dark areas.  If I use maple again I will apply a clear finish only.

Today, I applied the first coat of clear finish.  I'm going to apply three coats.  I like to use tung oil.  It was introduced to me by my friend Jay Fowler.  It's a centuries old finish developed by the Chinese. It gives a durable hand rubbed finish with a luster that is easily applied... Brush it on, let it penetrate and wipe off the excess.    If a scratch occurs in the future, simply wipe some tung oil on it and it is repaired.  The shop is now closed... tomorrow golf!

Finishing Problems

I stained the "tree" yesterday... I'm not real happy with the look.  Maple is a tough wood to stain because of the tightness of the grain and blotchiness that can occur.  I used Minwax Pre-Stain Conditioner to make the stain penetrate evenly, but the result wasn't what I expected.  I'm going to apply another coat of Minwax Early American stain today to see if it improves the look.  We'll see...

Building a Display For Susan's Vera Bradley Purse Collection

I'm currently building a coat/purse tree for Susan's collection of Vera Bradley purses. We thought this would be a great way to display them after seeing the idea at our family friends home in Tennessee. I'm using 8/4 maple for the post and foot and 4/4 maple for the braces.