El_Duderino
Promoted Users
The few times I have cleared wood, bubbles appeared within a few minutes. What is the proper procedure?
closed grain wood like maple are easy, grainy woods like oak are always a bear. it really comes down to the type of finish you are going for. if you are just trying to put a finish on the wood and still have the grain like you typically would have on furniture then that would be no problem but if you are trying to fill the grain on something like oak and end up with a sheet of glass type finish then you will need to start with a clear epoxy to fill the grain. the bubbles come from the clear flowing down into the grain and the air in the pores bubble up.
something i was wondering when reading through here:
i havent done much auto clear on wood and not on open grained/pour woods but quite a bit of poly and varnish. they seem to be a bit thinner than cleacoats. the woods with wider grain/open pours(oaks and ash mostly that ive used but im sure there are more) the poly/varnish seems to sink into the grain/open pours instead of trying to bridge it.
would it be possible to reduce a clearcoat to help it sink into the pours/grain?
sure you can reduce the clear and you will have to put less on for it to flow into the grain BUT remember that the solvents flash off and then it will leave the grain open again so you might have to put twice as many coats on to fill and seal the grain so air bubbles dont rise. best thing to do is take epoxy like what shine is using, pour a little on the surface then take a bondo spreader and squeegee it into the grain. remove all of it from the wood surface. basically scrape it clean. let that epoxy stiffen up for a couple few hrs but not completely cure. repeat that one or two more times to completely seal the grain. once the last coat you squeegee on has stiffened up then pour the final coat on. burst and airbubbles with a torch or heat gun. let that cure for a day or two. if it looks good then you can leave it. if you want to at that point you can sand it down flat then clear with universal clear. basically what your doing here is using a 100% solids epoxy to work as a clear grain filler before you do your final finish. btw, the grain filler doesnt have to be epoxy. if it doesnt need to be clear you can make it easy on yourself and use a trowelable grain filler. they have this at home depot. its parks wood filler for floors. spread it on to fill the grain, let dry, sand smooth and stain and finish the wood as you normally would.
If you wanna fool around, use slowest reducer you can, throw some copper or gold pearl in the poly. The wood draws the poly into the grain, the pearl will flow towards that / concentrates in those areas and creates great patterns. Its unpredictable, test it first to get a feel. Works best on open grain.