Just for practice!
- Thread starter Madman1978
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sorcerertd
Member
Nice practice pieces! Regarding CA finishing: LOL, it takes a lot of practice. I'm still not overly comfortable with it after maybe 75(ish) pens, but generally it comes out OK now. Try turning a scrap piece of wood, do some finish on it, turn it down narrower and do it again, repeat. If you are doing really intricate designs (lots of beads and grooves), I'd suggest looking into something else. Maybe wipe on poly or just a friction polish?
When I was learning I practiced on my pen blanks right after I got them round. Test out a finish, see whether I liked it, and then turn the finished wood off and try again or try something else. Lather, rinse, repeat until I'm close to final shape. All that wood's going to come off and wind up in the waste bin, might as well do something useful with it first.
wolf creek knives
Member
Like you, I tried the CA route and finally gave up on it. First off, the stink coming off the finishing process just about drove my nose nuts. So after a lot of trying I switched to Wipe On Poly and haven't had any problems. I do four coats with a 24 hour in between wait coats and after about a year of doing it this way I've had no complaints. There's also a dipping method with the WOP that you can find in the library here. Good luck.
walshjp17
Member
Ask any 10 penturners how to do a CA finish and you will get 4,563 different answers. Essentially a good finish on wood is determined by several factors. 1) The finish on the blank after shaping and sanding. The smoother the blank, the better the CA finish. 2)The wood: oily woods (e.g., rose woods, etc.) do not take well to a CA finish unless you do some prep work first such as applying one or more coats of DNA to cut the oily nature of the wood. 3) Type of CA. Many turners swear by Mercury Flex products because they were specifically formulated as a finish rather than most of the other CAs which were formulated as a glue and then adapted to use as a finish. 4) Technique of applying. Here is where most of the differences lie. I use 2 coats of Mercury Flex thin followed by 3 coats of Mercury Flex medium, then sand with 400 or 600 followed by MicroMesh sheets (not the pads) 1500 to 12000. I use the MM sheets dry and get a beautiful shine. I usually follow this with 2 coats of Maguire's PlastX and one coat of Renaissance Wax. My way works for me; it is not the only way. Some folks use 20, 30 or 40 coats of CA; it works for them. Personally, I believe once you get a good deep shine, you're done. Adding more coats after that, IMHO, is superfluous and a waste of CA.
Don't give up. As others say above, practice on some inxepensive blanks to find out what works best for you.
Don't give up. As others say above, practice on some inxepensive blanks to find out what works best for you.
sorcerertd
Member
LOL, that's exactly what I was thinking as I was typing!