Ceiling fan medallion

[harryball]

Now that the shopbot camp is over I'll share a few projects.

This is a ships wheel medallion placed in our kids school room.
Ultralight MDF, 32" diameter, attached with keyhole slots.
Cut with 1/4" ball nose, 10% stepover, 3 ips, cut time of around 50 minutes.
Imported to Aspire and edited slightly.
After cutting I took about 5 minutes and sanded the edges with the spindle sander.
I sealed it with shellac, lightly sanded, second coat of shellac, lightly sanded, final coat of shellac with another light sanding. About 30 minutes of actual hands on spread over about 2 hours.
My wife used a gel stain and some magic to create the final wood look and left it to dry for 24 hours.

[kzeyus]

Very Nice!

[tmerrill]

I was lucky enough today to see this in person. You can't tell that it's MDF. Great project and greater finish.

Tim

[GripUs]

Great work! My MDF projects always come out looking like...well, MDF.

Regards,

Joe

[joecnc2006]

Is there a link to finishing MDF to make it look like wood?

Joe

[johnnydoughey]

Beautiful work...
That piece looks like its at least an inch and a half thick. Is that the case?

[crocky]

What he said

[wjfiles]

Is there a link to finishing MDF to make it look like wood?

Joe

I don't have a link but I frequently make MDF look like any sort of wood.
I sand and seal with clear polyurethhane then with a brush I apply a stain.
I get the grain from the brush strokes. even some knots.
Finally I use two more coats of clear, sanding between.
By applying the stain between clear coats you get to play around until you get the result you are looking for.

RGDS
WJF

[capnl]

Great job on the wheel !!!

This forum becomes more and more a 'guide' with lots of stuff we can make ourselves to decorate our new showroom in a few months......

Greetings from The Netherlands and let's keep up the nice works !!

John
DRW-Holland

[Thkoutsidthebox]

Thats the best looking MDF I've ever seen. Cool! The carving is excellent, 50mins is pretty good I think for that. What was your cutting speed?

[harryball]

I was running 4 ips XY and 2 ips Z with a 1/4" ballnose. I read the wrong time from my log file, actual cut time was 1 hr 2 minutes. Still not bad but 12 more minutes.

My wife did the finish work and I transcribe...

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Apply a coat of shellac before sanding, this makes the "fuzzies" easier to sand away and shellac tries in a few minutes.
Do this 2 more times.
Using a gel stain and a cheap brush (or old stiff brush), you know the kind you can't use without leaving brush strokes.
Apply a base coat of gel stain, wait a few minutes and wipe it off. Let that dry a few minutes, it becomes the light areas of the "wood".
Apply gel stain with the cheap brush making grain as you go. Just try to make it look like you'd expect real grain to look.
If you mess up, wipe it off quickly and try again.
Once you get it right you can lightly dab any serious excess but basically you let it dry at least 24 hours before handling, it takes a long time for gel stain to dry when left thick.
It may still be a little tacky but you can generally wipe away excess now without ruining the finish. Use a little alchol on the back if needed to clean up any globs just to keep your wall or ceiling clean.
If you want to clear seal it, give it plenty of dry time.
I did not clear seal this project, the gel is a good finish itself.

Before working on something that takes an hour to cut, pull some MDF from the scrap pile and practice. It's really not hard... the hard part is knowing when to stop and leave it alone.

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End transcription.

I used 3/4" Ultralight Trupan because that's what I had on the shelf. I've used several types of MDF but the secret is coating with shellac and letting the first coat dry. It does get soaked up but it seals the pores pretty well. If you apply a second coat too soon it will simply soften the first layer and continue soaking up shellac.

/RB

[swaggs21]

I have to make one of these for my parents, but I am sure that it will not be half as impressive as yours