Getting rid of white spots WIP

I enjoyed giving my demo yesterday and it was good to get such positive feedback from so many of you.

Whilst most of it went according to plan the CA finishing turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I like to use such occasions to analyse what went wrong so that I won't make the same mistakes again and I also like to see if I can manage some sort of recovery.

Several things went wrong on this occasion:

The wood I chose (purpleheart) had quite an open grain structure so I won't choose that again for demo's.

I didn't fully seal the open pores before applying the finish. Cellulose sanding sealer is effective on most woods but on this occasion it just wasn't up to the job. (I used thin CA - suggested by Bill Mooney) for the recovery.

I didn't have a tack cloth with me to clear away any dust in the pores before applying the finish. This wasn't the main problem but it didn't help.

I didn't check visually for open pores before applying the white polishing compound which immediately filled up the gaps.

Finally, my attempts at recovery were rushed because of the time constraints of the demo and the subsequent applications of CA did not have enough time to dry properly.

Here is how I recovered the pen:

The finish was not the only problem, a close look showed that the shaping of the top of the barrel was a bit dodgy and the cap was slightly oversize. As it turns out this was to my advantage as I had scope to turn away the faulty finish without ending up with undersized components:


IMG_0291 by walter.hall, on Flickr

First thing was to dismantle the pen in the usual manner with a hammer and transfer punches:


IMG_0293 by walter.hall, on Flickr

Everything dismantled and ready for a second attempt:


IMG_0296 by walter.hall, on Flickr

The finish was removed and some subtle reshaping done with a skew chisel:


IMG_0298 by walter.hall, on Flickr

Sanded through the grits again and wiped with a tack cloth between grits:


IMG_0300 by walter.hall, on Flickr

After a wipe with meths (another of Bill Mooney's suggestions) and with the lathe running at about 350rpm, the blank was flooded with thin CA to seal the pores:


IMG_0304 by walter.hall, on Flickr

Back to my preferred method for applying the medium CA finish:


IMG_0306 by walter.hall, on Flickr

Sanded with micromesh to even out the irregularities:


IMG_0308 by walter.hall, on Flickr

A quick wipe with the tack cloth again and then polished with burnishing cream this time. Not quite so obvious if it got into any remaining pores:


IMG_0310 by walter.hall, on Flickr

And there we have it, the way it should have looked the first time.


IMG_0314 by walter.hall, on Flickr

I have learned a lot from my own mistakes here and I hope this little WIP will help anyone else who ends up with similar problems with a CA finish.

That's such a big difference. With open grained wood like oak I always flood it with CA until it is completely filled and then continue with my normal CA routine.

Peter

Thank you for that Walter very interesting and it's sure to help lots of people, lovely finish in the end!

Thanks for this Walter, regarding the Purpleheart i have a few blocks here at home each block showing different grain, by this i mean how much of the grain is open. So your demo has helped in other ways to. I will certainly be looking at this wood if i was going to be using a CA finish, those white flecks don't look good in a finished pen for sure .. :wink:

I certainly learnt something from your demo and your follow up

I hope we see you in action again soon

Thanks for the demo abd the recovery Walter, both very informative.

Very interesting Walter thanks for posting.

Nice finish well done.

Good recovery Walter & good WIP photos & thanks for the mention.

Enjoyed the demo Walter.

Did something go wrong? I didn't notice

great recovery and useful tutorial.

There you go, you were unhappy with the results on the day " under pressure " to come up with the goods.

Well recovered and explained as we all learn something on the day, pity I wasn't there as I would have loved to se you in action

But never mind, one day..

Thanks for all the comments folks. I have done this demo a few times now and this was the first time anything went awry. It just shows how little it takes to set the thing off course if you only have a limited time. The recovery took less than an hour, but a lot of that was spent waiting for CA to dry properly and that was one of the problems on the day. No-body wants to sit looking at my ugly mug whilst the CA drys so I may have to resort to using accelerator in demo's in future. Who knows what sort of catastrophes that will lead to. Still,nothing ventured. . . . .

Much respect for getting up there and doing it, and many thanks init?

Its never easy to demonstrate and with time restraints its inevitable that things go wrong. The end product is what matters though and that is a great looking pen.

Really enjoyed your demo Walter and the WIP follow up