Hi all, new member here. Home woodworker or at least pretending to be :). I love building things and each project gets just a little better.
Right now I am building a farmhouse style desk with bookcase. Base is painted and poly,d with water based poly. Learned about grain raise but that is fixed and done!
Top is made of 1×6 pine. Stained already. To make life easier since I am oil based on the top I was going to spray on with my sprayer. I was in Home Depot and saw aerosol cans and decided that seemed great as no cleanup. Setup my spray tent outside and sprayed on a coat. It seemed SO light it was almost not there after four hours so I sprayed on another coat. I was not thrilled abojt how thin it was going on as I could foresee this needing a lot of coats to build up anything. So I moved them inside where I could setup my horses and put on poly with a foam brush. Watched videos on technique and put on 2 coats sanding 220 between the spray and first coat and the second brushed on coat. These went on way thicker and I certainly have a nice build up of finish. Also kind of impressed with myself lol as if is very smooth.
My question is how to know if I should do a 3rd coat of brush on. I had some spray on there, so it had material. I just dont know if it was enough to do anything. I certainly have a nice finish on now. If it wasnt a desk I would definetly stop. But as a desk I want to ensure I have good protection. But I dont want to put on too much where it gets plasticy or doesnt bond right.
Any thoughts?
thanks!!
Ivan
Replies
It sounds to me as if you have gotten to the point where you have surpassed the minimum requirements for a top coat and are at the point where the only questions is "does it look good to me?".
From what you have described, I would say you are done. You have a nice build up, it's smooth so it looks good. Another coat, which would make 5 by my count, won't really add much protection. Anything that is going to damage 4 coats, will damage 5. So why risk an errant brush stroke or a bug landing or any of a million other things that can go wrong when poly is wet. If it looks good, move on to the enjoying the finished product phase of the project. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks! This would technically be the 4th but I am not confident I got significant thickness on the first two. There are still some minor inconsistencies so I planned on giving it a week and I read steel wool with some soapy water could take out anything minor.
But maybe my expectations on the spray are false and it is supposed to be that thin?
Seconding @beasley7
Generally speaking, just do what looks good and don't sweat the number of coats. I rarely put more than 2 coats of oil poly on - one to seal and one topcoat, and the third would only usually be used if I stuffed up the second. Three coats are more common with water based poly as it goes on a lot thinner and dries a bit too fast.
There is a law of diminishing returns though - if any finish is not working for you by three coats, you need to think why not? Probably surface prep was not adequate.
Thanks everyone, sounds like I can leave it. I am going to do a thorough review of the top to ensure everything looks pretty good. If it does I will let it sit for another week just to harden before the steel wall treatment to it.
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