Some Thoughts on Finishes for DIY Speakers

My favorite finish for wood is Danish Oil and wax. My least favored finish is polyurethane. Poly does however have some nice features, such as better moisture resistance than oil and wax.

While searching for a finish for my 3-way vented speakers, I compared four pairs of solid oak stock, three of which were finished and one left unfinished.

(23,457 bytes) is a picture of these samples. Each pair consists of a small piece of solid oak and a larger piece of oak plywood. The top left finish is Dark Walnut Danish Oil; the top right is black water soluble aniline dye; the lower left is unfinished; the lower right is white-washed with a pickling stain. (Actual color will vary due to your monitor's gamma, brightness, contrast, not to mention loss of image detail from jpeg compression). I ended up using the Dark Walnut Danish Oil for an English oak look, but strongly considered the black dye (wife liked the pickled oak, I liked the black so we compromised on the English oak look). Because I did not fill the pores on the oak before applying the dye, some areas inside the pores remained undyed. Properly filled, this finish may give a very professional look, similar to black oak speakers found in stores.

28-September-2000

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