|
I have this aunt. I love her dearly but she has an inordinately high opinion of her cooking skills. (Don’t tell her I said that.) Every time she finds a new recipe, before she ever attempts to prepare the dish, she starts tinkering with the ingredients and proportions – insisting the changes have improved the taste of the dish. There is no possible way she could know unless she tried the dish at least once, the way it was meant to be.
I like to follow woodworking forums and, from them, I get the opinion that many woodworkers are much like my aunt. It’s quite comical really. Search any one of them and you’ll find elaborate methods of preparing and applying finishes. I’m not saying I haven’t embellished a finish or two in my time but I like to try them out first to see what happens using the manufacturer’s method of application.
Recently I was finishing a project that can be classified as "hard to finish". It was a warping board for my wife (you can get the plan for it and read more here). Readily visible from the picture is the fact that there are a great many pegs protruding from this project that are maddening (to say the least) when finished by brush. I started finishing it from the back side, which was easy to do with a brush and some waterborne polyurethane. When I completed the back I realized the front was going to be much more difficult.
So I did a little research and I came up with an alternative. I decided to try gloss Minwax Wipe-On Poly, a solvent based polyurethane finish. I checked around to see about the best way to use it and I was amused by the advice I was getting. This was the point at which I decided it was best to follow the instructions on the can. So here is my finish for hard-to-finish projects (with a little embellishment at the end).
To prepare for finishing, I hand sanded the entire project with a wooden block and some 220 aluminum oxide sandpaper. It would have been impossible to use a sander on this project but, even on projects where it isn’t, I still prefer to do it with a very light touch – by hand. When done, remove all traces of sanding dust with a tack cloth.
Following the directions as indicated, I rubbed on three coats of Minwax Wipe-On Poly with a soft cotton cloth (I find the backside of my old underwear to be the best for this type of work – alright enough with the comments). Use a disposable nitrile glove in one hand and hold the can in the other. If not, you will find you’ve applied a nice thick coat of polyurethane to your hand by the time you have finished.
The product is really easy to apply and creates a nice thin film of finish that dries to re-coat in about four hours. I finished my project in my dining room as the shop was too cold, in my opinion, to use for finishing. (This product, while producing the usual odors associated with solvent based finishes, didn’t stink bad enough to require my exile in the basement.) Your drying time may vary depending on temperature and humidity so make sure that it is dry to the touch, not tacky, before you apply the next coat.
No matter how lint free the rag is that you use, you will always get some fibers on the finish along with dust particles. The dried polyurethane will feel a bit rough. The first coat may also look patchy, as though you didn’t get polyurethane on everything. No problem. This is where proper finishing techniques come in. Using very light pressure and working quickly (so you don’t wear through the finish), sand your first coat with some 320 wet/dry paper wrapped around a wood block. Just touch over the whole surface with very delicate strokes, and with the grain. Feel the areas you sanded as you go – you will notice how much smoother they become, and how quickly it happens. Last, remove the sanding dust and debris with a tack cloth. Every coat I refold the tack cloth so I’m wiping with a freshened surface.
The second and third coats go on the same way except that you don’t sand after the third coat (unless you are planning on a fourth or fifth coat). I let the third coat dry for at least 24 hours before going any further.
Once it sat and was fully cured, I rubbed out the entire surface with a ball of 0000 steel wool. You don’t have to be as careful with the wool as with the 320 wet/dry paper. The steel wool will cut much more slowly and leaves a nice satin finish. After the wool I took the project back to the shop and used compressed air to remove all of that darn "wool dust" (iron shavings basically). You can use synthetic wool (the finest Scotch-Brite pad) but it still leaves bits all over that have to be blown off.
After wooling the project I applied three thin coats of paste wax, buffing the wax out with a soft cloth. The results were fantastic. If you would like a less glossy finish just rub out the last wax coat with a little 0000 steel wool. I wouldn’t recommend the satin polyurethane. Many woodworkers complain about polyurethane obscuring the grain of wood and that’s probably because most of them use satin products. Satin polyurethane contains flatting agents that reduce the sheen by interfering with the way light reflects from the finish. By nature, these flatting agents obscure the grain so buy the gloss stuff to avoid this. Rubbing out the final finish with a little 0000 steel wool will do the same but without additives that cloud the finish.
I didn’t color this project because I was trying to match the natural wood color of the other things in my wife’s sewing room. The usual ambering you get with solvent based polyurethane provided the effect I was after. Feel free to use whatever dye or stain you prefer under the product. I seem to recall a problem using it over some kind of coloring agent. It may be my imagination as there is nothing on the can and I have not been able to find mention of the problem again. You might want to check at www.minwax.com just to be sure.
I’ve used a lot of polyurethane in the past. It has its ups and downs. This product, however, performed in a way that exceeded all my expectations. I haven’t been using it long but I will say that it is a permanent addition to my finishing arsenal. It is so easy to use it has become my finish of choice for projects that are "hard to finish".
|
