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ahoiberg

ahoiberg

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Apr 10, 2007
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anyone have any tips for finishing koa with CA? i did it last night but really had to lop (is that even a word?) on the CA. ended up sanding through what is normally an acceptable number of coats a few times. and finally ended up doing like 8 or 10 coats and had to sand a bunch to get it even. and after all was said and done, the CA didn't shine as much as it normally would on a different kind of wood...

just curious if anyone else has had similar experiences and what they've maybe done to combat it...

i remember seeing a thread about this a while back but i couldn't find it amongst all the other koa posts.
 
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I've made a lot of Koa miniatures lately, and haven't had a problem---I usually use just 2 coats of CA and it seems to be very shiny after I use EEE UltraShine and TSW.
 
I finished a Koa Baron not too long ago in CA/BLO...4 coats and I was able to get a pretty nice shine...problem was I had a "shadow/ghost" in the bottom blank....I never assembled the pen as I am waiting to see if it works its way out....if not, I may have to sand down to wood and start again. Did you get any ghosting?
 
i've got a few dull spots on my final finish... Not sure if i didn't sand down the ca enough or what but if that's what you're referring to, then yes. I had a bunch on the curls of the koa the first time, then redid it and only had a few in random spots but the end result I was pretty happy with.
 
If you look back a bit you'll see that I had the same problem. It does soak up a lot of CA, but as Dario said that is a good thing, should make for a very stable blank. I had to put on about 8 to 12 coats of CA on it, but boy oh boy what a nice finish. That sucker really shines nice, and the curls just jump out at you. I really like it.

Sheldon
 
sheldon,

i thought i remembered your post but couldn't find it for some reason... i had basically the same response except when i got toward the end of CA application, i still thought it was absorbing coats when it fact it was just building them. not usually a problem, except i wasn't sanding after each 4th coat or so and it came out a little, only a little, less than what i consider desirable... and of course, i'm my own worst critic.
 
I agree with Stan, I have found that almost everytime that I have a dull spot, I have actually sanded through the CA. I was right at the wood surface, and it was really hard to tell, but put on a few more layers of CA, then lightly sanded, and it turned out just right. I will try to post a picture of some of my pens today or tomorrow if I can figure out how.

Sheldon
 
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