making a tea tray - varnish?

[drumhum]

A friend of mine is making a lovely tea tray out of some yew. He is concerned that "normal varnish" might not standing up to regular baths of boiling water, and he's wondering what sort of protection or preservative he should apply to his creation.

Does anyone know about this sort of thing? What's the best way to treat a wooden tea tray? (and don't say "with love"


My friend tells me he'd heard that many chinese tea trays are covered in a coat of something called "Carpoly". From what I can find with a quick google, this is a trade name for some sort of water based polyurethane epoxy resin goo - whatever that is (I am no wood coating chemist!). Its certainly a chinese product.

Any ideas?

[Intuit]

Need to ask this question in a wood-working forum.

http://www.woodworking.com/dcforum/dcboard.pl

Others:

http://www.thewoodworkingcatalog.com/ (woodworking discussion lists)

[Geekgirl]

Industrial Sparvar would probably do the trick. Something like McCloskey for marine applications.

[chingwa]

urushi
http://www16.plala.or.jp/katana-iimura/urushi-e.html

[teaguy]

Can you ask your friend for me why he would ever subject a beautiful piece of wood to 'regular baths of boiling water'? The hot water is supposed to go into the teapot, not onto the wood!

My suggestion would be to NOT do anything to the wood - put a saucer under the teapot, and get a nice small pot to set at one end of the tray. When the saucer gets full, just dump it off into the pot. There is really little need to spill water or get everything all wet.

If your friend uses a gaiwan, it's even easier - the saucer with the gaiwan catches the drips, and you can use a towel to wipe up any drips or spills. Rubbing the tea into the wood ages it wonderfully. Here's a photo of a piece of Taiwan Cypress that is a new centerpiece of my tea room. It had been used for about 3 years before I got it, and the coloring of the wood is just from use. The wood hasn't been treated at all.

http://www.taiwanteaguy.com/2009/01/31/ ... #more-1024

Here's a story about making 'tea boards' that I put on my blog as well:

http://www.taiwanteaguy.com/2008/05/24/ ... the-cheap/

The only reason to seal the wood would be if you are actually making a box that is intended to hold water. A lot of the Chinese boxes are made of bamboo laminate, and need to be treated to keep the bamboo strips from rotting and splitting. For sealing, the information already provided seems quite on the ball - check with a local woodshop for further suggestions.

In any case, it would be cool to see some photos when it's all done if at all possible.

[JP]

Can you ask your friend for me why he would ever subject a beautiful piece of wood to 'regular baths of boiling water'? The hot water is supposed to go into the teapot, not onto the wood!

Part of using an yixing and the tea ceremony is pouring hot water over the pot after filling it.

[teaguy]

Not always. There's a tendency in the West to oversimplify things, and reduce everything to absolutes (meaning concrete rules). Different Dynaties, different regions, different teas - also different brewing methods. What exactly is a 'tea ceremony' anyway? What is 'gong fu' tea brewing?

And, when it is (poured over the pot), it's seldom 'boiling' - just under boiling (about 98 Celsius) is about as hot as is usually needed (see note above). With subsequent steeps, the water temperature slowly drops as the steeping time increases. Besides which, as the water is poured over the pot, it cools more than you might think.

Also, the at the end of my sentence indicates a tongue-in-cheek response; my point being that it may not be necessary to waterproof a piece of wood for it to function as a tea tray.

Well, I think I'll go practice my 'dry pot' tea ceremony technique on some Taiwan TKY. Should go well with the rainy weather we're having lately. See ya 'round!

[TimK]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but might I suggest that you look into using tung oil - it is frequently used on floors and is a traditional product. Have a look on the wikipedia for a brief description.

I would not recommend you use Urushi for a one off project unless you already have experience with its application.