CA Beginner needs help

[Kami]

Hello everyone!

My first post, and perhaps one of the most important ones. I just hope it is in the right place.

I am trying to get a great CA a finish for the first time. I have read alot of post's here about how to achive this, however I feel as if I am missing somthing.

I am sanding to 1200 (the highest abrasive I have) then applying a layer of medium CA with kitchen roll (waitros own I'm afraid not Bounty ) I turn the lathe on and leave it running for a few mins to help with drying. Then apply another layer. I keep doing this however it looks like it needs somthing else however I am not sure what.

Any help would be appriciated.

Cheers

Kami

p.s The wood I am using is plum.


Oxford, UK

 

[Jerryconn]

Kami,

Take look a this Link this is the procedure I used when I started applying CA finish. after you are comfortable with this process there are several others out try searching For CA/BLO as well.
Hope this helps

BTW welcome to the Group!

 

[fiferb]

Can you show a picture? It's hard to tell what the problem is from your description. What does the finish look like after your last coat of medium CA?

 

[leehljp]

Not quite enough details on what you are missing. Is it too rough? Not smooth enough? Not clear enough, or shiny enough?

If I read your post correctly, it seems to say that you are not sanding between applications, which would be your problem if not. If you are using sandpaper only, I am not sure which kind you are using but I will go to 1500 or 2000 in sandpaper itself for a glass smooth shine. However I do have MM and use that to 12000.

Between layers, I go to 400 or 600 and bring it up to about 1000 in sandpaper grit before going on to the next coat of CA. Another thing that I do is sand until there are NO shiny spots. Any spot that is shiny after sanding indicates a low spot and the next coat will not necessarily fill it in, but will often cause a much lower spot on the next application. Therefore, sand until all the shine is gone. This indicates that there is a good smooth sanding from bushing to bushing. Another note is to not sand with too much force.

I am still learning and am not the expert, but this has been my learning experience over the last two years.

 

[Brewmeister35]

Kami,

The link that Jerry sent you should help. I couldn't get the finish to work til I used that method. I've tweaked to my own liking since, but I really think the magic step for me was using the sanding sealer.

 

[gerryr]

If you put out a generic question here about how people do a CA finish, you would get as many different techniques as there were people responding. I think you would be hard pressed to find more than 2 people who used precisely the same technique. Some people use a sanding sealer and others don't(I don't), some people use BLO and others do not(I don't), some people sand between each coat and others don't(I don't unless the CA blooms), some people use only thin, others use thin and medium while others use thin and thick. On a woodworking forum I saw a post recommending using only medium. So, you can see that it can get complicated. When I first started trying to use CA, I tried to follow Fanger's method. When I glued a piece of sandpaper to my finger, I determined I needed to make some modifications. The one thing that I didn't see you mention was using Micro Mesh. Without that stuff, I'm not sure I would even attempt a CA finish. MM will "sand" CA from about the equivalent of 400 grit paper to well beyond what you could get with 2000 grit paper. I would recommend going to the Library forum and viewing Russ Fairfield's video on doing a CA finish. You can't go wrong by following what Russ does.

 

[skiprat]

Hi Andy. Welcome to the world famous IAP. Nice to see more UK guys joining. Can't help you with the CA finish coz I'm crap at it. Sometimes it works for me and I can't remember how I did it, sometimes I follow written instructions and end up glueing myself to the lathe. [][]

 

[Kami]

Thanks for all the reply's.

That link looked great, however I think I need to get myself some micro mesh (next pay check).

The problem was that I was not sand between applications. I think/can see where the MM would help as it would give me a more even surface to apply the next lot to.

I will give it a go with the sanding pads I have and let you know the results.

Thanks everyone[]

Kami