What I usually do is right before I get into my finish coat, I sand up to 1000 grit, nearly giving a polished appearance to the wood.
Then, while the lathe is spinning at low speed, I apply rubbing alcohol. This evaporates pretty fast, stripping the oils and a little water out of the surface of the wood. Then, I apply Minwax Stain and Seal "natural" color, and while that's still wet, I apply a coat of CA. I don't spend more than 3 seconds with the applicator against the wood. Any more than that and I risk the applicator getting glued to the pen barrel.
After applying 6 - 9 coats of CA, I then begin my wet sanding, starting with 1000 grit to knock off any ridges that may have formed. Then I sand "with the grain" with the lathe turned off. Then I jump to micromesh pads (I get them from Hobby Lobby), 3200 grit, wet .... followed by turning the lathe off and sanding "with the grain" again. As I work my way up to 12,000 grit, every 3 pads or so, I stop the lathe again to sand "with the grain".
Finally, I apply some Meguiar's PlastX and buff at high speed .... I leave the lathe spinning at high speed while I follow up with a coat of Turtle Wax Hard Coat and buff it to a glassy mirror shine. The results look as though the wood was encased in glass.
Keep in mind that if you are looking to get results like mine, you'll have to follow my entire procedure step by step, taking no shortcuts or deviations. Certain substitutions may work well, like swapping out my minwax for some danish oil, boiled linseed oil, walnut oil, or what have you ... the brand of superglue used can also be changed up, as I just use the cheap stuff I buy at Harbor Freight in the 10-packs. If you have One-Step plastic polish, you can swap that in to take the place of the PlastX. In fact, they're both made by the same company.
You're right about using alcohol and adding water to the wood that way. Alcohol is hydroscopic and pulls water right out of the air and depending on the alcohol you buy, there is more water in some than others right away, no pure alcohol. I use acetone. Also, when I was into archery really heavy and fletched my own arrows, I noticed how alcohol does leave a residue, mostly whatever minerals was in the water that was in the alcohol. I should point out that as I said alcohol pulls the water out of the air, the older your alcohol the more water will be in it. As far as oils, alcohol is not a good degreaser, I worked in the printing industry for over 30 years and alcohol never was any good for that. Like I said I use acetone, takes care of the oils, flashes faster than alcohol and leaves no film.What I usually do is right before I get into my finish coat, I sand up to 1000 grit, nearly giving a polished appearance to the wood.
Then, while the lathe is spinning at low speed, I apply rubbing alcohol. This evaporates pretty fast, stripping the oils and a little water out of the surface of the wood. Then, I apply Minwax Stain and Seal "natural" color, and while that's still wet, I apply a coat of CA. I don't spend more than 3 seconds with the applicator against the wood. Any more than that and I risk the applicator getting glued to the pen barrel.
After applying 6 - 9 coats of CA, I then begin my wet sanding, starting with 1000 grit to knock off any ridges that may have formed. Then I sand "with the grain" with the lathe turned off. Then I jump to micromesh pads (I get them from Hobby Lobby), 3200 grit, wet .... followed by turning the lathe off and sanding "with the grain" again. As I work my way up to 12,000 grit, every 3 pads or so, I stop the lathe again to sand "with the grain".
Finally, I apply some Meguiar's PlastX and buff at high speed .... I leave the lathe spinning at high speed while I follow up with a coat of Turtle Wax Hard Coat and buff it to a glassy mirror shine. The results look as though the wood was encased in glass.
Keep in mind that if you are looking to get results like mine, you'll have to follow my entire procedure step by step, taking no shortcuts or deviations. Certain substitutions may work well, like swapping out my minwax for some danish oil, boiled linseed oil, walnut oil, or what have you ... the brand of superglue used can also be changed up, as I just use the cheap stuff I buy at Harbor Freight in the 10-packs. If you have One-Step plastic polish, you can swap that in to take the place of the PlastX. In fact, they're both made by the same company.
You are adding water to the blank and depending on the strength of the rubbing alcohol you can be adding more water than others.
Yeah, I'll have to find me some nail polish remover .... not a huge fan of that smell, though.
That and ... will it possibly react with my CA finish coat after, if some of the acetone is still in the wood when I apply my finish?
Acetone flashes really fast. I don't soak the blank tho, I just wet a paper towel and wipe, I don't even have the lathe running. I used to use acetone years ago when I used to do silk screening. We used it to clean the screens after we were done with them to get the lacquer based film off and then reuse the screens. They had to be clean with no residue or the film wouldn't stick.Yeah, I'll have to find me some nail polish remover .... not a huge fan of that smell, though.
That and ... will it possibly react with my CA finish coat after, if some of the acetone is still in the wood when I apply my finish?
