Help needed.... spoiled finish

[irishconger]

Greetings fellow WWers,

Some time ago (confession... 2 years!) I made a stand for a large gong... jarrah and rosewood(!legal... very old stock)... all glossy, hand planed surfaces.

In my rush to get it finished(!), I coated with with a self made finish of tung oil and (pure / hard) carnuba wax... heated... dissolved... creamy wax... rub on, wait, rub off... done...a tried and tested solution.

Sadly, I became ill.... and could not rub off the finish on time... and so the surface is still coated with streaky white hard (carnuba) wax lines.... UUGGHHH!

I do not want to scrape or sand these off... I would prefer to apply a solvent and rub the excess wax off.

Any suggestions as to which solvent I should be using?

Now... to save bandwidth, I have tried native terps and orange oil... these just dont bite it.

Many thanks, g.

[Mike Brady]

A couple of comments:

Yours is a finishing question and might warrant cross-posting in the other forums here on Woodnet. 

Wax finishes are usually very handsome, but I view them as a last coat over some other more durable base finish.  The chief problem with wax as a finish is that it is very difficult to remove sufficiently to allow refinishing with another product.  I don't think you have any choice but to get to bare wood if you want a different form of finish.  With that in mind, I would try using a powerful solvent to dissolve and remove as much of the wax as is feasible; perhaps applying the solvent with a synthetic abrasive pad.  You then should use another wax finish such as the one Chris Schwarz recommended recently in his Lost Art Press blog.  It is made in Canada and is turpentine / wax in a creme form.  I have tried it on some small items such as tool handles and will be testing it in some sample boards as a top coat for small boxes.  I would avoid trying to use a solvent based finish on top of your original one.

When I have used wax as a final finish, it has been over a solvent finish such as lacquer or shellac.  Because of this I use the very dark colored waxes that are made for furniture specifically, such as Bri-Wax.  The nice thing about wax finishes is that the don't need to "cure" between coats so you should be able to get the job done in short order. With the oily woods used in your piece, I'm reasonably confident that you can achieve a beautiful result. Post photos when you are done!

[Bill Holt]

I have never tried to remove carnauba, but I am pretty sure mineral spirits will do the trick, at least on the surface.

[Rob Young]

I have never tried to remove carnauba, but I am pretty sure mineral spirits will do the trick, at least on the surface.

The mineral spirits should help but it will still require some elbow grease to build up heat to soften the wax.

And you could get out the heat gun and locally heat areas, wipe them down and move on.  Just be careful you don't scorch the wood.

I've also experimented with using non-woven abrasive pads (i.e. Scotch Bright) just slapped on the random orbit sander as a way to polish out stubborn wax on flat surfaces.  Works, you just have to be patient and change the pad frequently.  Don't use a very coarse grit, the gray (fall between 000 and 0000 steel wool) and the white (finest) did the trick but it still took a while.