Desert Ironwood
- Thread starter Amihai
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Fine Engineer
Member
Gorgeous wood there Amihai.
As for the finish, are you using the Micro Mesh pads? If you go too easy on the 1500 grit, and don't get the finish flat and even with that, you will simply end up polishing the imperfections at the end. Spend more time with the 1500 and 2000 grits and get an even dull finish with no shiny spots before moving on the the finer grits.
I have a pen with an imperfect finish that I may try disassembling and refinishing. Partly as an exercise, but also to try and salvage one that could look much better.
As for the finish, are you using the Micro Mesh pads? If you go too easy on the 1500 grit, and don't get the finish flat and even with that, you will simply end up polishing the imperfections at the end. Spend more time with the 1500 and 2000 grits and get an even dull finish with no shiny spots before moving on the the finer grits.
I have a pen with an imperfect finish that I may try disassembling and refinishing. Partly as an exercise, but also to try and salvage one that could look much better.
I use Zona paper, as I got better results with it compared to the Micromesh. Dry sanding. maybe I don't put enough pressure with the first one or two grits? I try to be gentle with them to not sand away the finish completely, as they are quite aggressive...
Fine Engineer
Member
You definitely want to be careful not to sand through the finish. It's not about the pressure, but the time. Be gentle, inspect often, and stop as soon as you have no shiny spots. That should give you a perfect final finish.
First off, pen is a great combination. The wood and the antique silver are great together.
It is worth trying starting at a higher grit. If you start out with a smooth enough finish, you don't necessarily need to start at the coarsest grit in the set of zona papers. You just need to start at one that is just coarse enough to level out the surface. That may be two or three grits finer than the coarsest.
IMO, I like to dry-sand the first grit or two regardless. I feel that with the first grit, water lubricates too much, and makes it harder to bring down the bumps and ridges, especially if you start at a finer grit than the coarsest possible. Once you have leveled out the surface, then wet sanding through the rest will usually work just fine.
Also, you don't necessarily need to use a lot of pressure when sanding. Sandpaper is a cutting tool, designed to cut through the uneven bumps and ridges on a surface. I use small snips of zona paper, longer than wide, so I can hold onto them, but otherwise I try to make it go as far as possible (last as long as possible). You don't want to reuse sandpaper. The cutting capabilities of each piece wear down pretty quick. A small 3/4" wide, 1 1/2" long piece should work well enough to sand through on one end, then flip it around and sand through with the other end (maybe with a lighter touch). After that, throw that piece away. Use a new piece for the next pen, or if you still need more sanding at the same grit with the current, get a new piece. Same for each grit. Don't skip grits, use EVERY single grit in the series until you get down to the finest. Grits are separated by a 50% grit size reduction. Each grit is designed to cut through half the size of the scratches left by the previous grit. Eventually, you cut through all the scratches to the point where the remaining scratches are so fine, you cannot see them.
Even after you get down to 1 micron, if you are using resins (CA on wood, or any resin blank), you can then continue to polish with high grit finishing polish compounds. Those are usually sub-micron grit, if you feel you still need to polish out any ultra fine scratches (depending on the light, you may find that even 1 micron scratches can be visible with the right glint.)
I actually ordered the so-called "one-step plastic polish" from PSI. Hope it will remove the marks after the one micron Zona paper. still didn't get the package...
Be careful using it, it's more aggressive than you might think. I ruined a couple of finishes with it, I think I probably went at it with to heavy of a hand.
KMCloonan
Member
I do see radial scratches, which typically come from sanding on the lathe. You can try turning the lathe off between grits, and sand by hand with the grain to remove the radial scratches. Once smooth, I usually switch to micromesh and wet sanding.
I agree with jrista - the combination of wood and kit is excellent!
I agree with jrista - the combination of wood and kit is excellent!
sorcerertd
Member
It's a beautiful pen! I have got to get some of that desert ironwood. Also, the Jr. George is one of my favorite kits. It has a simple, clean look about it, not distracting from the all the work we do on the barrels.
As for the finish, and maybe it's just the angle of the picture, but it appears to be more spiral than radial. If your finish looks like there is a spiral after applying the CA, you are probably putting it on too heavily. I've been guilty of this plenty of times, being in a hurry to get the finish on in half the time only to spend three times as long to level and polish it properly. Many thin coats is better than a few thick ones to keep it more level before you even start sanding. Another option is to use a scraper to level it before you start sanding, but that takes a very light touch. It's really easy to scrape down to the wood again.
As for the finish, and maybe it's just the angle of the picture, but it appears to be more spiral than radial. If your finish looks like there is a spiral after applying the CA, you are probably putting it on too heavily. I've been guilty of this plenty of times, being in a hurry to get the finish on in half the time only to spend three times as long to level and polish it properly. Many thin coats is better than a few thick ones to keep it more level before you even start sanding. Another option is to use a scraper to level it before you start sanding, but that takes a very light touch. It's really easy to scrape down to the wood again.
So, if you are hoping the marks you can see now will be removed with a polish, I can tell you now that they won't. Sanding is a serial process. Each grit reduces the scale of the scratches by a relative factor of two. In your case, you have LARGE scale scratches visible. To correct that, you would need to back up the grits, and re-sand through them all.
Here is another tip, that might help if you choose to try that. Alternate sanding directions. With the first grit, lathe on, sand. Next grit, turn the lathe off, and manually sand lengthwise up and down the blank, manually rotating just a little bit at a time until you have lengthwise sanded all around it. You want the stratches to be long, lengthwise, for this grit. Third grit, turn the lathe back on and sand around. Fourth grit, lengthwise. Fifth lathe on. Etc. etc.
Why do this? It makes sure that each grit, you CROSS-CUT the ridges left by the prior grit. IF you only sand with the lathe on, then it is a lot harder to make sure you are cross-cutting through the ridges left by the prior grit. This is how I sand myself. For a polish to work, you shouldn't really be able to see scratches, except under close scrutinization under just the right light (i.e. edge of highlights, where you can actually see the super fine scratches of high grit sandpaper.) Polish, being ultra-high grit (sub micron), should "cut" through the ultra fine scratches left by 1-2 micron sandpaper grit.
Re-sanding through the grits, especially if you do it dead between centers (no bushings) might be useful anyway. It looks like you built up the CA slightly larger than the diameter of the pen parts, so re-sanding would help you bring that diameter back down to proper. You would need to use calipers to measure the ends, but, you have room to give re-sanding a go, which is nice. If you had sanded the CA back down to bushing size already, you might have had to build up some additional layers to handle re-sanding. 