What is Chatoyance?

What the heck is chatoyance? Chatoyance is amazing, is what it is. Chatoyance is from the French, and what it really means, is shine like a cat's eye, and that's what effect we get, in the right piece of wood. Here's what I'm talking about. When you look, especially in this piece of maple wood, when you look right down this edge, it kinda looks like there's still sawmill marks here, and this was band saw cut, so when I got it, there were marks going across it. It sanded really, really smooth. Those are not sawmill marks, this is the chatoyance in the wood, and what it is, is in this maple, we would say this is a little bit of quilted maple. Chatoyance is the effect that the quilting has, which is, when we look at it, it has this very cool, three dimensional look to it. So, here's what I'm gonna do. Got a couple of different pieces for this table, available, and I'm gonna throw some mineral spirits on here, and that's gonna really pop the grain so you can better see what I'm talking about. Then I'm gonna do it to that piece as well, and we'll do a little visual science experiment. It's interesting in classes I've had, it's happened pretty often that I see somebody, sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding on a piece of wood, and I feel like, well that sanding should have been done long, you know, this should be done by now, what's going on? So, when I look at it, what they say is, "Well, I'm trying to get these defects sanded, I'm trying to get these ridges sanded out", but when you feel this, it's smooth as a mirror, but it looks like there are marks in the wood, that have to come out, and they're not, they're in the grain, so you're not going to get them to come out. All right, a little mineral spirits, so you can see what I'm so excited about here. Just getting that wet with the mineral spirits, look at that dramatic grain right there, it's amazing. On this piece, let's do the same thing, and the reason I'm doing it to the smaller piece is, what happens when you're looking at material, that has this effect, when you move side to side, it's a little bit like a holographic picture. When you move your head, it changes the appearance of the chatoyance, and that's what I'm gonna try to get for you here, is get this quilting wet, and then, by doing this. One of the things that's just so neat, and I can see it, looking down the board this way, is just the way that it gives it that amazing three dimensional look. So, where are we at here? One, what is chatoyance? Chatoyance is this shimmering effect that we get from wood. Again, remember, it literally means shine like a cat's eye, so it's got that sparkle to it. If you've ever seen a piece of the semi-precious gem, tiger's eye, same thing, that's what it looks like. Two, when you have quilted maple, like I have here, any piece of wood that's got this kind of quilting in it, then we get finish on it, that's when that really starts to pop. Now, to take this a step further, what I'll be doing with this table, is using aniline dye, to introduce some color to it. Then, after the aniline dye is saturated in the surface, a light sanding leaves the dye in the bottom of the quilting, and then I'll topcoat over the top of that, and that's gonna really help it pop. So, if you don't wanna go as far as the dye, but you do wanna accentuate this, any finish that's got, kind of, an amber tone to it, shellac, solid based lacquer, the water-based products tend to be really really clear, and they're not gonna give you that amber tone. Boiled linseed oil would be another great example, of a finish that will really help pop that chatoyance. So, now you know what it is, you know to not bother trying to sand it out, and it can really add a hugely dramatic effect to a woodworking project.