Does anyone have any experience with Watco Natural on Clear Heart Redwood. This is old growth stuff and bone dry. It is sucking up the Watco like there is not end to it. My intention is to finish up with 2 coats of Watco Finishing Wax with the second coat as a lube while sanding with 600 wet/dry. I’m just wondering how many coats of the oil I might expect to apply.
John
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We need Steve Schefer -- he's been working with some old-growth redwood recently. Yo, Steve!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Forest_Girl... I talked to him about it... He says to mix the Watco Satin Wax with the oil, starting with a 50/50 mix and progressing to full strength wax. I tried it and it worked great. I slurry sanded every coat and it sealed right up. John
Yep, thats the ticket...Steve - in Northern California
This is a trick I've not heard of before, just want to be sure I'm not misunderstanding here. Raw wood, no washcoat of shellac or anything, right? Mix wax and oil together and apply? How long does do you need to wait between coats? What types of wood do you reserve this technique for?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Well since this was my first time, I'm not even sure its the right thing to do. I noticed that the wax smelled a lot like the oil and when I mixed them they went together well. I figured if the oil and slurry were mixed with the wax they would eventually fill the wood poors and seal them. For drying time, I spread it on with a foam brush then sanded it with 600 w/d. When I finished sanding I wiped it off with a cotton t-shirt then waited about 15 minutes on average before buffing it lightly. After buffing, I applied the next coat and repeated the process. Before that, with the straight oil, I was following the instructions on the can which said to reapply to areas that appeard to be soaking up the oil. I reapplied oil for about two hours and the same spots were still flattening horribly. Thats when I tried the mix and sanding method. It seems to work nicely.
I didn't have this problem with the first one I did. This one was from a different piece of wood.Steve - in Northern California
Sounds to me like you might have had a stroke of genius! If there are no problems down the road (perish the thought), this would be a good one to send in to one of the magazines. Better yet, package it and sell it tee hee!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Let keep our fingers crossed. By the way, this was one that I was keeping for myself... I went to hang it last night using flush mount hangers and it split the top rail. I'm re-gluing it right now. This conversation sparked me to take a look at the amount of penetration I was getting. It is pretty much soaked down about a 1/4". I decided to drill down through the top rail and sink 3 1/2" dry wall screws into the stiles. I'll do this on the bottom too. I'll have to ask the guy thats buying these thing how he's hanging them.. Probably on a heavy duty wire attached at the stiles. I'll put two more flush mounts on the lower rail so it is supported from the bottom and just held against the wall with the top hangers.Steve - in Northern California
Steve,
Mixing sanding slurry with oil is often done to help fill the pores. On wood with large pores, however, it reduces the clarity you would get from filling the pores with a transparent substance. Good or bad here depends on the look you want. Wax is more commonly applied afterwards. Mixing it with the oil will work as you described, the difference being that the finish will cure much softer, and be easier to damage. Once again, good or bad depends on what you need to accomplish including the amount of handling and abuse it will have to take.
Not sure what you were using here, but two hours for recoat seems a bit short. Was this Watco natural, or their wax? Sounds like their wax, which would be two hours for a surface coat. However, pore filling (if it works) would probably have to dry much longer. Even then, the amount of solvent they have in this would probably pull most of the wax out of the pores. Now, if you add oil to this (what oil?) it'll need much more time to cure between coats.
Another approach is to use a varnish/oil blend. Either Watco, or just make your own. You can still fill the pores with sanding slurry if you like. What I'm not sure of from those posts is exactly what you're looking to end with.
Gerry
Hi Gerry, yeah this is a mirror frame. The effect is to leave a burnished finish nothing glossy at all. The mirror is the attention getter not the wood.
I just got off the phone with my brain surgeon (painter friend) and he agrees that this was the right way to do it. When it broke (the rail split) I had the opportunity to look at the level of penetration. It was over a 1/4 inch into the wood. If I had stayed with straight Watco Natural Oil, it would have taken hours of repetitive applications just to get it to dry without flashing flat.
The end result was a very soft, transluscent finish that feels like silk to the touch but doesn't look like it has any finish at all. Well protected but not over protected as old growth clear heart redwood should look. I'm very happy with the results and the fact that the re-glue and drywall screws are holding it on the wall right now.Steve - in Northern California
Steve,
By burnished, I'm guessing you want a very smooth satin. I'm surprised at the 1/4 inch penetration. That shouldn't happen unless the earlier coats were not sufficiently cured. In any case, sounds like you've got a solution that fits the problem, and that's the goal of all this.
Haven't used Watco for awhile, and just tried it on some bandsaw boxes. As you already described, I'm not seeing much buildup. Looks like the real recoat time's maybe a day. It's also a bit too dark for what I need. I need something harder than wax, so will probably switch to a tung oil/varnish blend. If I mix it, I can control the hardness and gloss.
Gerry
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