This is my second time finishing lacewood. The first time it took days for the polyurethane to dry. i thought maybe it was because it was an older can of poly. It took several days for it to dry through each coat, but I just toughed it out.
Well, I just finished a jewelry box out of lacewood and here we go again, I bought a brand new can of poly this time. I am using minwax, gloss. It has been 15 hours now and the box is still very tacky. Does it have something to do with the wood? I use poly all the time and have never had a problem before. Any advice will be appreciated.
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Could be you got an old can of finish the second time too, but look closely at the surface of the wood. Does it seem to be staying tacky just on the rays of the wood? In lacewood the ray tissue is very dense, while the surrounding tissue is very porous. The poly on the ray tissue doesn't get absorbed and the solvents in it must rely totally on the atmosphere to bleed them off. I don't use poly much, but I've noticed that the varnishes I use (alkyds mostly) tend to dry slower in the summer months when the humidity is high.
As for the natural chemistry of lacewood, it has some serious toxic properties (as an allergen for some people), because of the phenols it contains...so, possibly the wood's chemistry is contributing to the problem. You could test to determine if this is the case by coating a sample of the lacewood and a sample of another species, preferably one that also has dominant rays (such as oak) to see if the drying time differs.
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