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One one of the car shows on TV where they restore old Chargers and Challengers, the owner prides himself on being one of the countries best car re-finishers. I don't know if he is or not.
He starts by applying two coats of primer hand blocking the finish with 320 grit paper between and after coats. (Blocking on this show means a wide sanding block that will flatten out the finish without following all the contours created by the finisher.)
He then puts on several coats of color again blocking between coats. When he's built up enough coating thickness he then switches to blocking with some 600 grit paper. Then he uses a pneumatic wet orbital finish sander similar to this with 1,000 grit paper:
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-inch-palm...66881.htmlHe then switches to 1500 grit and then 2500 grit paper.
He finishes with a buffing compound.
I'm sure it looks great. On TV it is hard to tell.
Has anyone ever tried to get that level of gloss finish on a wood project?
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There's a guy on SMC that has shown some amazing gloss finishes he's done in both paint and clearcoat. The process he uses for painted ones sounds a lot like what you described. I don't normally do anything in gloss, but I did recently do a live edge walnut slab to a pretty high gloss. My process was similar. I applied about 6 coats of Arm-R-Seal, mostly by foam brush, sanding between coats with 325 grit for the first few and 600 grit before the last couple, with my ROS. After the last coat had cured about 10 days I sanded with 1000 grit then 1500 grit using my ROS. Then I switched to Abralon foam disks. I started at 2000 grit, then 3000, then 4000, which left me with a beautiful satin sheen. Then I used auto polishing compound on a micro fiber pad, again using my ROS. When I was done with that I had this.
It's not to the level of what the guy on SMC does, but it came out pretty nice and wasn't very hard to do. I'll be less hesitant when I need/want to do it again.
John
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I know it isn't, but that looks like a poured on bar top finish. Actually it looks better than that.
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Yeah, the skill set did not seem intimidating. It just requires a ton of patience. If my compressor could handle the orbital wet sander I would get that for my next project. It sounds like a winner.
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jasfrank said:
I know it isn't, but that looks like a poured on bar top finish. Actually it looks better than that.
I recently did a high gloss butcherblock counter top. I used Minwax gloss oil poly. Four coats is about as much as I would want on the top or it starts to look a lot like plastic. But if you don't go too thick on the coating the gloss looks terrific. Easy enough because the oil base self levels. You only have to worry about dust.
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Do some googling on guitar finishing. The polished lacquer finishes on some custom guitars are like glass. Stewmac.com is a good place to start. They have some good info in the how-to section.
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Most luthiers and piano makers use polyester finishes rather than NC lacquer any more to get a very gloss finish.
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Cooler said:
Yeah, the skill set did not seem intimidating. It just requires a ton of patience. If my compressor could handle the orbital wet sander I would get that for my next project. It sounds like a winner.
It didn't take long to do that slab top, maybe an hour total to rub it out. And you don't need a special sander. I used my Bosch ROS. All the sanding and Abralon foam pads were done dry. The only thing that was wet was the automotive polishing compound and not much water was used with that. Just a few mists of water after I squirted on the compound. The buffing head was solid so none of the compound/water mix got sucked into the sander. It all seemed pretty safe and certainly didn't make a mess.
John
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Speaking of which my Poter Cable ROS is starting to make some nasty noises and may soon need to be replaced. How do you like the Bosch unit?
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I have the
Bosch ROS65VC and like it a lot. I bought the 6" but later bought the 5" pad because some of the high grit papers only come in 5". Anyway, the sander is super smooth, is easy to control, has good on board dust collection and, most important, leaves a swirl free finish. The pads are easy to change back and forth. I've used it for an hour or more a few times and my hands were fine - the vibration control is very good. Also, the sander was only warm afterwards, definitely not hot. I've never used a Festool or Mirka, but it's hard to imagine what they could do better. The sander is about 2 years old now with no issues.
John
