CA finish on Cocobolo - help needed

[jtate]

Any hints? The top part of the pen is segmented and all the surfaces are, essentially, end grain. The lower barrel is one piece of wood and is cut in the standard method. The lower barrel finished beautifully but the upper barrel just wouldn't take the finish. It kept getting a grapefruit-skin look. Then when it did take the finish, there was a white chipped looking area at the end.

I cleaned it all with acetone and tried again. Got about three coats of thin CA on it without messing up, so I called it quits for the night. I'm still not happy with it yet. the tiny pits and teeny holes in the grain show in the finish.

I'd like to sand, letting the CA that's on there now fill the end grain so that subsequent coats of CA create a smooth finish.

Any hints?

Oh, it didn't stick to the bushings when I seperated them from the blanks. I credit the floor wax I applied to the bushings before putting the blanks on there.

Julia

 

[leehljp]

Julia,

I had the same problem with ebony woods and occasionally with cocobolo. I never worried about the grapefruit skin. I just sanded it down until it was all gone but did not take it down to the wood. Sometimes that takes a fine touch. I start and stop the lathe a dozen times if I have to - to get the rough spots out, but start back if I see even the hint of a single spot left. Then put another layer or two of CA on.

As to the chipping at then end, that is because of:
1. a combination little too much CA build up and sometime from when the bushing breaking away, causing a separation of the CA from the oily wood.
2. droping the finished will cause the problem too.
3. pressing a smidgen too tight on the press will cause it also.
4. wax on the bushing making its way to the blank

All 4 reasons deal with a single issue that I have been able to work around. To me they are all caused by the stress from the separation of the blank from the bushing after finishing AND or wax. If you coat the bushing with a minute' quantity of wax to prevent sticking, I think that the wax sometimes finds its way to the end of the bushing, also causing the finish to separate. I say that because of years of woodworking, I know how waxes and oils can find their way to the edge of a board that is about to be finished.

Now the cure (for me) it is in the post and article below - about the use of a dead drive instead of mandrel when finishing. I have not had a single problem with ebonies and cocobolos since. I have done 8 ebonies and only one cocobolo since the post below. Before I was hitting about 50/50 and now 100 percent on 9.

Go to this link:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26155
and this one:
http://content.penturners.org/articles/2007/Dead_Center.pdf

In the first link is a couple of links to companies that make and sell dead centers.

 

[Blind_Squirrel]

I was having a devil of a time finishing some Australian teak that I have. REALLY oily/waxy. I first finished it with some tung oil and let that cure for a couple of weeks. I then applied the CA over the tung finish. So far, it seems to be working.