How Do You Get Open Grained Wood Smooth ? ? ?

[William Young]

As far as finish goes, this is my best gloss and most durable finish so far. I experimented using the WB laquer with my sprayer this time instead of as a wipe-on like before.
But although the finish is glass smooth, the open grain of this piece of purpleheart takes away from the beauty of the finish and it shows up badly in this picture..
I am interested in the ways that everybody deals with open grained wood when sanding it. It seems that no matter how fine I sand , (12000 MM), I still have open grain on some woods and the better the finish that is applied , the more the open grain shows up.
Is a filler recommended ?.. or I have heard of a slury being formed somehow ?... by wet sanding ? ... . I have never done either one so I need to learn what others do in this case.

Disregard the round inlays in this pen . This whole pen is just a practice piece with used hardware from some of my earlier ones that I am dissassembling due to vanishing friction finish. The hardware in this one will probably go the same route to yet another one while I am practicing and learning different little techniques in pen making.
W.Y.

 

[Guest]

I wet sand with BLO.Make sure you sand long grain with late off to at least the second MM.
You can skip the blo on the last couple of MM's.
You should see a big difference.On multi wooded blanks you may get color transfer.Especially oily woods

 

[pen-turners]

William,
The best way I have found to fill voids or open grains is with thick CA glue. With the lathe running slow (and eye protection!!) just put a small amount of it on one of the little baggies from your pen kits and make a pass over the pen. You can even do it with the lathe stopped and manually turn the handwheel. You don't have to worry too much about it getting too uneven because you will be sanding it off anyway. The CA will fill the pores and even soak into the top layer of the wood a little bit if you use the Thick kind. If you use thin, it tends to soak into the wood too much to fill the pores. I do not use accelerator because it tends to give the CA a foggy appearance. After the CA dries, sand and finish as normal and all the pores should be filled nicely with CA and you won't even be able to tell they are there.

Chris

 

[timdaleiden]

There are quite a few ways to fill open grain. A slurry sanding is popular, and is pretty easy to do. You can use either CA, sanding sealer, or other quick dry liquid.

I use 400 grit wet/dry sand paper on the spinning blank to collect dust, then apply the liquid and use the dust/liquid slurry to fill grain. Sanding sealer is a bit easier to use than CA for me.

 

[wayneis]

If you go back to the web site where you bought the WB, get their sanding sealer as it is formulated to be used with the product you already have. That is why I have mentioned a couple of times to use sanding sealer, sorry I should have been more specific but thats is what it does, fill the pores.

Wayne

 

[William Young]

Thanks for the replies and various options of overcoming the problem. Most things I have made in recent years including advanced level fretwork clocks have used open grain wood and mostly oak. The laquer finish on them is desireable with the open grain look but it isn't on pens.

Wayne, good idea about the sanding sealer. But before I order some, I have a half gallon of solvent based lauqer sealer from when I used to build and refinish guitars. I dont imagine age (shelf life) of a sealer would matter as long as it filled the grain. My only concern would be if it would be compatable with putting the WB laquer on after filling the grain with with SB product first . Perhaps if I filled it with that through the coarser grits and then continued to finer sanding without it, the SB laquer would be mostly buried in the lower levels with the fine sanding dust on the top levels..
I will practice on a few of my earlier pens that I am pulling apart. Oak is a very open grain. If I can fill that , I should be able to fill anything.
W.Y.

 

[William Young]

Thanks Kim for that advice. That is one beautifull looking pen you showed. As much as I try to refrain from using CA for various reasons, I am going to have to try it for filling in open grained woods. Who knows, I may even become to like it after I get some experience with using it.
How long do you have to wait before sanding after applying the thick CA to the wood ? . I have accelerator but with reports of it giving a foggy appearance, I better not use it for that.
W.Y.

 

[Guest]

Whistle! foul! fifteen yard penalty for mis- informatiuon!
Kim though your pen is drop dead gorgeous I don't think you can compare Bills' situation with walnut to your Burl .THe burl is much harcder and no where near the open grain of walnut.
I use Ca and CA/BLO on 95% of my pens even the corncob pens.
It takes patience to do it correctly as most finishes do, but i know that my CA finish is about the most durable finish you can have.
If you don't belive me Keep trying it sometime on ONE pen even if it takes you all afternoon.
Let it cure overnight and then TRY to take the finish off on teh lathe.
(DAMHIKT)
The first pen I ever turned was finished with CA and have been using it since.( I didn't say it was easy)
If you wet sand with MM it developes a Hard finish and fills the grain.

 

[William Young]

Eaglesc;
That pen was actually purpleheart as in my original message and not walnut.
But I do appreciate all the advice from everyone and now I have lots of ideas to put into practice and eventually I will find a way that works best for me.
There are so many ways of acheiving the same goal. It's nice to know the good points and the shortcomings of all of them. I may just go ahead and dis-assemble that one and chuck the wood pieces into the designer firewood box and try another purpleheart one with some method of grain filling learned from all these suggestions.
OOPPSS , just rememberd. I'm out of spare tubes. Maybe will be able to salvage some by scraping the wood off a few.
W.Y.

 

[timdaleiden]

Originally posted by Kim
<br />I think ca glue is the best way to fill wood. But I don't think the slurry method is too good. On wood with lots of 'depth' or chatoyance the slurry method kinda spoils the effect. I sand to 12k mm and then clean the wood with denatured alcohol. With very porous wood I use a hair dryer to speed drying.

And I know I'll probably get slapped around for saying this, but BLO and ca really don't mix that well. At best, wiping the pen with BLO simply cleans out the grain. It also greatly increases your chances of getting dull or dead spots in your finish and it results in the ca not curing as hard as it would without the oil.

I use CA to grain fill at times, but it really depends on the wood in question. Wenge for example does not have any Chatoyance to begin with, so a sealer slurry works just fine. The same applies to Oak and some other woods. Even with woods that do show depth of grain, once sanded back down through the sealer, only the formerly open grain is opaque. Cross cut open grain woods, get only pure CA.

Anywho, you mentioned the CA-BLO chemical reaction in the Yahoo group, and I wonder if you could expand on that.

I have used Don Ward's method of Watco Danish oil, which is apparently mostly BLO, and CA and had great success. The final finish seems harder than the pure CA finishes I have done. I use a very un-scientific thumbnail test. It also seems to "eliminate" any flat, or dull areas that I was used to getting with pure CA. I assume this is because I am getting a more uniform application of CA.

BTW, nobody gets slapped around here. This is probably the most polite group on the internet.

 

[William Young]

OK, I made another purpleheart pen out of reclaimed hardware again just for the purpose of trying a wood sealing method suggested here.. I used the CA method and that worked good for filling the grain. Then I thought .. heck, I'm into CA now why not contiue with it as a finish. This my second try at trying CA for a finish. Two hours later and several attempts that failed miserably, I stripped it all down and started over and put a WB laquer finish on it. A couple seconds to apply the first coat. Half hour to sandable dry . Quick rub with MM for a tiny dust nib I spotted and then a couple more seconds for another coat. came in for supper and went back out and assembled it.
It's not perfect but it's good enough for the girls I go with.[)]
Don't take me wrong. I am not discrediting those in any way that do CA finish. I actually envy the fact that they have good luck with it. I even printed out the article on the home page and took it into my shop to follow. I also got a severe headache while using it so I think I'll refrain from using that product as much as possible.
W.Y.

 

[tipusnr]

I wonder if, in all this research, we aren't forgetting to keep out shops well ventilated? I am reading more and more about adverse reactions to CA fumes. Many of the turners I know locally won't even try it as a finish for this very fact.

As with any fast drying finish or glue - the more ventilation the better.

Just a thought.

 

[Guest]

When ever I read about CA fumes I don't understand why the concern.
I realized that it may be because I have a 4x10 HVAC boot located behind the bed of my lathe.It was meant to catch the shavings and it does to some extent,better with the fine dust.
I imagine the fumes are being sucked right out while I am using the CA and BLO for finishing.
My D.C. set-up is a home brew using 2 smaller D.C. blowers and a chip separator..
The hose is 4" and was designed to handle my tablesaw,planer and jointer.
I intend to make a larger "hood" out of some lexan I have.