Ash is an open grained wood, so if you want a smooth flat finish it will require grain filling. You can do this a few ways – a couple of thick poly undercoats might get it level, three or four heavy coats of sanding sealer will certainly do the trick, but the standard method is to use a grain/pore filler.
This is my first time grain filling, so I was surprised at the lack of choices available in the UK and the prices. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the steps, as it was quite messy and I didn’t have time to snap pictures before the filler became unworkable.
I settled on Rustins Oak grain filler, bought from someone on Amazon. I went with the oak as I wanted to get some contrast in the grain.
I thinned the filler to the consistency of double cream with white spirit then applied liberally with my fingers, first going with the grain, then across it. Getting the edge filled was quite fiddly, and I probably went a bit too thick. I left it 10 minutes or so until it became hazy, then scraped off the excess across the grain. It was left overnight to cure (this was done over 2 nights, one for each side of the body).
You can see that it has definitely darkened the ash a fair bit.
In order to get the contrast in the grain, the idea is to sand back the high points, leaving just the wide grain filled with the darker filler.
Instead of testing which grade sandpaper to use, I hit it with 120 grit. Of course that sanded away almost all the filler immediately, and it still needed to be smoothed out with 240 and 320 grit for the shellac. By this time there was very little filler left. I decided that as I had always planned this to be a semi-rustic build, with some finish “sink” I wouldn’t bother filling again.
Lessons learned – Rustins sands pretty easily and 240 or even 320 grit may be sufficient. Next time I will certainly prepare a bit better and get some hessian cloth to use to scrape off the excess – from reading the excellent TDPRI this helps get more filler in the pores and also burnishes the high areas of the ash. I’d also go with 2 applications of grain filler to get it level on non rustic builds.
Next – sealer.
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