I'm pleased with the results I am getting from Liberon Finishing Oil. Works better for me than Waterlox or General Finishes wipe on stuff. So I've applied sufficient coats to a table top and can see some faint rag lines. I'd like to do the pumice/rottenstone or the mildly abrasive automobile compound but am not sure how long I need to wait until the finish has cured enough to withstand the after finishing. Any thoughts or suggestions on this?
ROY!
Damned if I can find out, but most sources say use steel wool between coats, so it must cure fast.. The manufacturers page has SOME info..
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I followed Mac's link, and it is apparently some kind of kissing cousin of the hybrid finishes they make these days. Enough oil to be a varnish, but enough plastic to be a poly. You can see that they recommend this product as a water reisistant finish, so I am thinking closer to the poly resin matrix.
This would also seem to be apparent when reading their recommendation of scuffing/smoothing the surface with their 0000 steel wool before recoating. That's a manufacturer's caveat for poly, then top it off with a 5 hour MINIMUM for recoat or drying, that almost has to be a poly blend.
That being said, poly can be rubbed out nicely in the right hands. I have seen it. But like most finishes, you need to wait a minimum of 2 weeks before buffing it out. To rub out a thin coat of polyurethane, you need to wait about 30 days or more.
And not to get in your biz ROY!, but you need to have about 6 mil minimum (that's really a minimum - 9-10 would be better) before going rottenstone, car polish, etc. Even doing it by hand, you will chew through a finish in no time if it is thinner than that, and even worse, thinner than 6 mil (looking for 3 mil final thickness) will not give you enough material to buff out to make it look pretty.
Here's the other problem; when you rub on your finish and rub off everthing that doesn't stick, you are probably leaving a cured coat of about .25 to .3 mil per coat. Why do you think you don't screw up when you apply multiple coats? There isn't enough finish on in one coat to make much more than barely detectable film. So... you do the math. At .25 thickness per build coat, that is about 25 coats to get you in the bottom of the rub out desired thickness. I don't know how long it would take to put on enough material to get to the real desired thickness of 9 mil or so to do a proper cut down and buff.
Here's the last problem. When you apply varnish/poly, if it doesn't completely adhere from one coat to the next, or it gets some kind of airborne contaminate between coats, or there is a big temp or humidity change, etc, etc, you will get witness lines. That's a super thin (hopefully thin) white line that becomes apparent when buffing.
Poly finishes and varnish finishes are known for this. They don't make themselves noticeable if you are simply applying another full coat on top of another and leaving it alone. But if you are buffing out a piece it is entirely possible to expose a thin edge of one of your coats, or one that just didn't bond correctly.
That being said, it does look good when it works.
Love to hear about your results if you jump in on this.
Robert
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