Silky Oak?

[jonesfam]

We recently bought a couple of old beds, 1 of them would seem to be Silky Oak.
SWMBO wants the Silky Oak 1 done up for the foster daughter as she is fast growing out of her little cot bed.
It is a lovely old high bed with cast iron fittings (including castors) & a stretchy wire base, problem is I have no idea how to do up Silky Oak. Can I sand it? Do I stain or varnish it? How hard do you go at it?
As I'm sure someone here has done this before any advice would be helpful. I don't want to stuff it up, it was only $20 but SWMBO would be very stroppy because she loves the look of the old thing.
Thanks
Jonesfam

[Gullible]

Depending on what kind of look you are after there are a number of things you can try.

Stripping it down, again that depends on what is currently on it.

I prefer a light sand and stain with scandinavian oil to bring out the grain.

If you are not sure try a patch test somewhere on the underside.

[copba]

Yeah you can sand it no problem, you sometimes don't get a perfectly smooth finish due to the coarse grain, though this depends which way the board is cut. The dust can be irritating, so where a mask.

I prefer to varnish or an oil rather than stain, as the stain can sometimes hide the distinctive fleck grain pattern.

It's good furniture timber, generally very stable, and reasonably resistant to marks as its relatively dense about 800kg/m3

Good luck with it

Cheers

[Boofla]

Look at using feast Watson sanding sealer after you sand and before you finish it. Will give a better, more uniform finish.
Have a look at some of there finishes to get an idea of what you want to use


FeastWatson | Home Consumer (http://www.feastwatson.com.au/)

Cheers