My downfall

[Pajaro]

My major hump to get over, in my woodwork, is finishes. I use mostly water based finish. But no matter how much I sand and re-sand, I still can not get a good finish. Are there any good beginner books on the subject start to finish finishing with water base finish.

Yikes, so many finishes so little time.

[workin for wood]

I prefer water finishes too. what's the problem? you washing and sanding before applying finish? Staining or clear coat? Sanding sealer? You using the sanding sealer meant for the acrylic top coat?

All projects should be washed with a damp, not soaking wet, rag, whether applying a stain or a clear coat. This goes for water or oil based finishes. A lamp is placed so the bulb shines sideways across the wood. As the wood dries, you will see all the fibers rise up. You sand all these fibers off 220 or 320 grit. This is a fast process, if you over sand, you create new fibers. For oil finishes, I do a single wash and sand. For acrylic finishes, I do a second wash and sand.

Imagine a bale of hay. If you sand the bale of hay, you will remove hay off the top, but you are also smashing straw down into the bale, and regarless of this, you are cutting all the straw on an angle as it is pushed down. So, once it relaxes, you now have straw that sticks up like a point. Wood...bale of hay..same thing. You get out a microscope and examine wood and it looks like a small compressed bale of hay.

Now...perhaps you see people using cabinet scrapers. This eliminates the need for washing and sanding. Now you are not smashing and tapering fibers into the wood, you are cutting them directly off, much like shaving your face against the grain. Unfortunately, a cabinet scraper is only good for flat surfaces or gentle curves. You can't cabinet scrape intarsia pieces, so you are forced to wash and sand. The backer board is washed and sanded a couple times before the piece is attached, and a prayer is said at the same time. Once the piece is attached, any fibers that stand up in the nooks and crannies that you just can't get to, have to stay. A marquetry is perfect for scraping. Fretwork can be scraped in many cases, but not all. You certainly need to be careful if the frets are too fragile.

If you are staining, I suggest tossing the stain in the trash and switching to dyes. You wash and sand, wash and sand, then apply the dye.

Before a topcoat is applied, a sanding sealer must be applied and it must be the sealer that is compatible with the topcoat.

Buy a decent HVLP Sprayer, like a Binks. You need 3 cans and a pressure pot, plus air compressor of course. One can for sealer, one for top coat and one for water. The water is to clean the nozzle in between sealer and top coat application. An extra long air hose is a good idea too, like attach 2 hoses together to obtain 50 or more feet of hose. The longer hose gives the air a chance to cool down which prevents vortexing in the nozzle head. Don't opt for the sprayers like they have at the Box stores ...staged sprayers, like a single, double, triple or 4 stage, as those tend to break down/burn up over time. When you get a sprayer, upgrade to a larger nozzle. Acrylic is too thick for the standard nozzle, it's like comparing water to milk shakes. Purchase a catalized acrylic as your actual finish. You need to mix a catalizer into the finish, which determines dry time and hardness. You spray that baby outside on a nice day, you'll shoot coats almost half as thick as a credit card that dry in 30 minutes. Just stick by with some super small tweezers because bugs are attracted to glossy wet looking surfaces. Your finish doesn't have to be glossy, but it's always glossy looking when wet of course. Within an hour, you can lightly sand and re-coat. In 3 hrs, you can spray a coat of sealer and two coats of acrylic topcoat and have that hanging on the wall in your house. 2 coats of topcoat is like 10 coats from a spray can. Durability is hard like a rock, but flexible and non-cracking at the same time. Catalyzed acrylic polyurethane contains very little poly at all. It's mostly just acrylic plastic where you the user can determine the gloss and hardness.

Cost...decent equipment and finish supplies, not including a compressor will be 700-$800, but you can usually find good quality used equipment much cheaper.

Once your set up, it's idiot proof.

[mrcutit]

Wow
Good info Jeff, Im glad I read this post. I have learned alot. I bow to the master That is what I love about this site, so many people that have so much knowledge to help guys like me that have very little lol. My favorite way to finish projects is with a torch, and clear coat, although this method does not fit with all projects, it works well for me with wild life projects.

[workin for wood]

Ahhh...one more thing. With catalyzed acrylics, you do not have to clean you spray canisters. You can just put plastic over the hole with a rubber band and set the can on the shelf. So you don't waste the extra finish you poured in the canister. I find finishes like laquer, you try and do that and you'll end up with quite a mess, first a film builds and eventually the entire canister is a stuck on rock of laquer. And yes, you can just pour your laquer back into the can it came from, but the more times you pour, the more contaminating you do, and the more cleaning up you have to do.

Here's a lead towards some good equipment... Used and B Guns

This is good equipment, but it's a staged sprayer. At least it's a 3 stage. The more the stages, the better the spayer. Problem with these types of sprayers is the blower tends to burn up and that's an expensive fix and takes you out of business, where as a sprayer running off a compressor...if the compressor takes a dive, you can run into town and rent one. The price on this sprayer is pretty good though, and it pretty much comes with everything you need to start spraying immediately. Amazon.com: Fuji Industrial Spray Equipment Q3 PRO Quiet 3-Stage HVLP Spray System #3003: Home Improvement

[Pajaro]

Jeff thanks for the great information. There were several things I didn't know. The washing of the wood never crossed my mind. Thanks again. I have a long way to go. So I better get started. I


I use mostly natural wood colors, but what kind of dyes are you talking about & where do I get them?

[Mick Walker]

Jeff, I don't agree with your suggestion to use water on wood that you are going to finish with an oil base product. Water used on oak unless it is distilled water will react with the tannin in the oak. Just my opinion.

[JohnB]

G'day Pete,
I'm not going to disagree with Jeff's methods as they obviously work for him.

A couple of points that I do differently are as follows.

I don't wash the wood to bring out the bloom as the first coat of lacquer does this. Sanding sealer is designed to lift the bloom and fill in the grain and sand back smoothly so first coating with this may help.

Here's a link to my thoughts on finishing and some tips.
My thoughts on Finishing

[workin for wood]

You are correct Mick, but the washing oak has no effect. You don't drown it, you damp it. Been doing it for years, when I worked at a cabinet shop most of the cabinets we made were oak and we washed and sanded them all and they were all sprayed with acrylic.

For John..well Lacquer is a different subject than this, which is about acrylic latex. But, for lacquer I'd still wash it. You'll find that if you wash it, sand it then apply a laquer sanding sealer, the amount of sanding is drastically reduced to the point that you may not have any hairs standing in the first coat of finish after the sanding sealer is sanded. Acrylics are much more hair raising. If you read the instructions, they even tell you to wash and sand first, I swear they do...but you know us guys, we often don't read them. If I hadn't worked in a cabinet shop, I might not have figured that out.

[JohnB]

G'day Jeff,
I must agree with you that the Water based stuff sure does lift the grain.
I actually have given up using it as a "Polish" finish because of this and only use it to put a protective gloss over painted works.

I'll give your method a bash and see what happens.
Sorry for getting my wires crossed, that's what happens when I don't read a post properly, must be the same with instructions

[Magpie]

There's a really good book, Foolproof Wood Finishing, by Teri Masaschi, that I use all the time. It doesn't cover spraying at all, but does cover most of the rest of the finishes that non-professionals use.

I use lots of different finishes depending on the item and what use it's gonna get. My 2 favorites are gel varnish (intarsia) and Danish oil (fretwork). I do use a little spray lacquer but, wow, it reeks. What kind of items are you looking to finish at the moment?