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Maybe I can strip it again and not use the mineral spirit mix. Running out of wood veneer, I have already had to cover so bits over with some sharpie shading 😁
Maybe I can strip it again and not use the mineral spirit mix. Running out of wood veneer, I have already had to cover so bits over with some sharpie shading 😁
The mineral spirits just make it easier to cover in the beginning and get a flat, clear outcome (since it's thinner). Shouldn't affect color.
After reinstalling all of my wood and it sitting out in the sun baking for a week or so, the grain has reappeared in the finished. :-(
I wasn't expecting this, so I'm not particularly happy. I'll try going after it with 2500 grit and a quick polish and see what the outcome is. I really do not want to remove all this trim again!
I'll mark this up as another lesson learned. Don't rush the job!
That's really too bad, it is a bit surprising to me that it receded further down into the grain with it so thick, but... heat. Good luck with the sand and buff.
I'm up to 10 coats on my test piece shift surround. Probably one or two to go. It's taking forever because I'm waiting at least 6 hours between coats, and the first three were thinned with mineral spirits. As you noted before, the grain was difficult to seal in the first place.
Thanks for telling us this, I'll bake my test piece in one of the outdoor cars for a couple of weeks to see what happens after I finish before I try my original test shift surround piece (The one just done is lovely, but way too dark because I'm a picky ******* and because oil based poly is a bit yellow. Trying either water based polyurethane, which is clear, or the clear UV cure polyester for round 2).
Note: the interface just censored one of my words. So, now time to test if I can call a particular type of 'mill file' a '*******-cut mill file', or if I can refer to "my donkey' as "my ***", or if I can refer to "my female dog" as "my bitch". Experiments, I'll leave it here and not try languages other than English, and idioms in other languages, saving that entertainment for a later date.
Additional note added: Donkey and female dog okay, illegitimate child or mill file type not okay. Unfortunately, George Carlin is dead.
That's a shame about the finish. Good luck with the sand and polish. With the pieces in place it will be a
royal PITA to try to fix. If worse comes to worse you could try a light coat of polyurathane with a soft brush
and polish to try fill the grain crevices. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
I took on the task of wet sanding with 2500 and buffing out the wood today to fix the problem I noticed with the finish having shrunk into the wood grain. I'm happy to report it was successful! I did the airbag cover in place and removed the rest the dash panels to do those individually. No issues and I'm happy again!
Alright, after three weeks and 11 coats, my 'second' test piece done with oil based polyurethane looks almost as good as mhminnich's. The finished piece is a bit too dark for the wood in the car (see below), but I'm putting it in one of the outdoor cars to see what happens to the finish over the next couple of weeks.
My first 'test' piece still has about third of the original coating on it, the finish is welded quite nicely to the wood, but I've made progress on removing that too. Perhaps wood from different eras have different adhesion? I'm saving the original shift surround from the car until I get this right.
This process with the polyurethane took way too long. I'd like to use this for other things, so, next stop: polyester on my 'first' test piece. Ordered the medium viscosity and the sanding sealer from Solarez. With the polyester, it should be
1. Prepare the wood
2. Coat with sanding sealer and wait (~90 minutes) for the bubbles to rise out (I may put it into a vacuum pot I have).
3. UV cure in minutes.
4. Prepare the surface for the polyester.
5. Coat with polyester and wait a while (~90 minutes without vacuum) for the bubbles to rise out (probably will put into the vacuum pot).
6. UV cure in minutes.
7. Finish sand and polish.
Optimistic that that procedure can be done in one day...
Looks good, but a bit too dark and took way too long...
Good luck with the new procedure. Let us know how it turns out. I plan to refinish the
interior pieces during my next "winter break" and it would be nice to find a faster way
to get as nice a finish as mhminnich did, although I'll have 6 months to get it right.
I've really enjoyed watching this thread. I'd like to add a bit to it.
In my previous life I operated a small automotive restoration shop.
I personally refinished many wood components in interiors. Initially (way back in time) with nitrocellulose lacquer then acrylic, then urethanes. Enough of my history.
Several years ago I refinished my late father’s custom 243 caliber rifle, made by A.R.Platt. Mr. Platt was a good friend of my fathers and our neighbor while I was growing up in Pittsburgh, Pa.
I wanted a superb finish that I could work with, no longer having a spray booth. I had previous experience using some of KlassKote's product and chose their clear epoxy for this.
It was relatively easy to work with, timing and temperature ranges need to be adhered to. The finish is @50% solids, meaning that once cured the finish will exhibit minimal shrinkage. I was quite happy with the results and plan on refinishing a 'matching grain' dash set for my X100 sometime soon.
Here are a couple of photos of the finish on the old rifle. I did let the final coat cure for @ 10 days before the final polishing and it never showed any shrinkage up until the day that a collector prised the rifle from my hands.
The product I used was Clear#40 and Gloss Catalyst#405. During spraying I reduced the mixture @ 10% with high quality lacquer thinner.
That looks really nice on the gun. By the looks of the instruction on the web site it looks fairly
easy and straight forward to use. I'll give it a try on a spare piece. Thanks for the link.
I've really enjoyed watching this thread. I'd like to add a bit to it.
In my previous life I operated a small automotive restoration shop.
...
Several years ago I refinished my late father’s custom 243 caliber rifle, made by A.R.Platt. Mr. Platt was a good friend of my fathers and our neighbor while I was growing up in Pittsburgh, Pa.
I wanted a superb finish that I could work with, no longer having a spray booth. I had previous experience using some of KlassKote's product and chose their clear epoxy for this.
It was relatively easy to work with, timing and temperature ranges need to be adhered to. The finish is @50% solids, meaning that once cured the finish will exhibit minimal shrinkage. I was quite happy with the results and plan on refinishing a 'matching grain' dash set for my X100 sometime soon.
Here are a couple of photos of the finish on the old rifle. I did let the final coat cure for @ 10 days before the final polishing and it never showed any shrinkage up until the day that a collector prised the rifle from my hands.
Really nice job!
I think the only tradeoff between polyurethane, epoxy, and polyester is cure/application time (epoxy and polyester win depending on formulation, cure technique) and in-car temperature. Here, polyester (~150 C) is a bit better than most epoxies (~120 C) which is a bit better than most polyurethanes (~75-100C)). Really not much of a tradeoff except for the time.component, or Dubai...
Interesting tidbit, I tested a number of solvents to soften/dissolve the original coatings. The list of things that do not work include 91% Isopropyl, Naptha, Lacquer Thinner, Acetone, some of these immersed for months (reminds me I need to get rid of these). I have also tried some combinations of these to no avail.
One thing I wanted to try, but was more difficult since our Environmental Protection Agency recently banned it for consumer use right before I started playing around with this, Methylene Chloride (think old and effective paint stripper). It is still available for professionals. Even though I haven't tried this, I just saw on ebay that someone else used this on an XK8 wood set, and it apparently is successful (see below). If you have some in the shed, use at your own risk...
Methylene Chloride stripper (the old stuff, AKA 'Known Carcinogen in the State of California') in the picture above with its effect on an XK8 wood set. Alas, 'the public' can't get this any more.
I still have some Methylene Chloride laying around. I'm sure it would strip the oem finish.
(I still have a gallon of carbon black nitrocellulose I plan on using on some furniture some day)
Back to the KlassKote stuff. It is much easier to use than most of the automotive and industrial products I used.
It has a reasonably long tail in its flow out but still a reasonable tack free time with some good resistance to running/sagging, it also polishes quite easily even after a 10 day cure. Just make certain the surface is smooth before your last coat is applied.
Rather than starting with something ambitious like my remaining test shift surround, I tried the polyester UV cure from Solarez on a button holder I've put for my wife's hands free unit (holds a button and a USB charger and replaces the ashtray). Made the button holder today out of paduak (yesterday's trial of walnut burl was a disaster, would need to shore up structure with something).
Used the two coats of the solarez sanding sealer. Only nonstandard thing I did was to put the first coat in an evacuated chamber for about half an hour before I resmoothed it and shined the UV light on it. I did this for the second sanding sealer coat, but no bubbles, so I didn't bother again. Took about a minute or two with the UV flashlight from solarez to get a complete cure for each layer. Sanded at 320 grit between coats.
For the final thick gloss coat, I used solarez medium viscosity and piled it on the top by pouring it, spread it around with a hotel key. Let it level itself and scraped the edges to clean off the drips. Let it sit for only about 15 minutes since I couldn't see any bubbles or anything with a magnifying glass. Again, about 3 minutes to cure under the flashlight.
I also wanted to try the micromesh sanding stuff on this, so I used the system from 2400 through 12000 and finished with their finishing polish. All by hand since this is a small piece. Results below, came out great.
This is far faster than the large number of poly coats it would have taken to do this. Since I did it at night, this was an advantage, there is almost no place in my house where light streaming through the windows (even in the basement, there are 7 full size windows with no curtains) would not have upset the process with stray UV.
Cutting and sanding the wood took about 2 hours (I did two), the coatings took just over an hour and the final sanding/polishing took about 45 minutes while I played with the 'correct' technique to use the micromesh sandpaper.
As noted, this was great. I plan on using the UV cure polyester moving forward.
Last edited by crbass; 05-14-2020 at 12:41 AM.
Reason: Happy fingers, crappy words.
04-16-2020, 08:54 PM
