Phil Mueller
05-07-2018, 10:46 PM
Thought I’d give grain filling a try. Watched a half dozen videos and got a basic understanding of this fairly uneventful process and picked up a small amount of Wunderfil walnut toned grain filler. Grabbed a piece of walnut and set out to give it a run.
Diluted the filler with water to about the consistency of pancake batter (at least that’s what most videos said...but who knows how thick you like your batter, right?). Anyway, this is what I went with:
385491
Used a pad similar to a big french polish rubber and swirled it around on the board (working about 8” at a time) until it started to get a bit dry and then wiped the excess off across the grain with a piece of burlap while pressing it into the pores. Again, a few folks recommending burlap on the videos, so happened to have a small piece to use.
385492
Waited a couple of hours and then sanded with 220 using a ROS set on slow speed.
Result wasn’t bad, but still left some open pores. One video indicated 2-3 applications for walnut, so I wasn’t discouraged.
385494
Did a second application, wiped excess off diagonally to the grain but this time just used the applicator pad to wipe off the excess which left it a bit thicker (I only had one piece of burlap and it was now full of dried filler, so no real strategic thought to using the pad instead...just figured whatever).
385495
Again, waited a few hours and sanded with 220. Seemed to do the trick...with some very minor open grain that I figured would be small enough to fill with finish.
385496
After 1 coat of Sealacell, and three light coats of Arm-R-Seal, you can still see the grain, but it’s as smooth as can be.
385497
All in all, works well. It’s a nice alternative to wet sanding, which frankly I don’t like doing inside, and doesn’t take 24 hours or more to dry (using Watco for example).
So yep, that’s it. Nothing more to see here folks, you can now move along :rolleyes:
Diluted the filler with water to about the consistency of pancake batter (at least that’s what most videos said...but who knows how thick you like your batter, right?). Anyway, this is what I went with:
385491
Used a pad similar to a big french polish rubber and swirled it around on the board (working about 8” at a time) until it started to get a bit dry and then wiped the excess off across the grain with a piece of burlap while pressing it into the pores. Again, a few folks recommending burlap on the videos, so happened to have a small piece to use.
385492
Waited a couple of hours and then sanded with 220 using a ROS set on slow speed.
Result wasn’t bad, but still left some open pores. One video indicated 2-3 applications for walnut, so I wasn’t discouraged.
385494
Did a second application, wiped excess off diagonally to the grain but this time just used the applicator pad to wipe off the excess which left it a bit thicker (I only had one piece of burlap and it was now full of dried filler, so no real strategic thought to using the pad instead...just figured whatever).
385495
Again, waited a few hours and sanded with 220. Seemed to do the trick...with some very minor open grain that I figured would be small enough to fill with finish.
385496
After 1 coat of Sealacell, and three light coats of Arm-R-Seal, you can still see the grain, but it’s as smooth as can be.
385497
All in all, works well. It’s a nice alternative to wet sanding, which frankly I don’t like doing inside, and doesn’t take 24 hours or more to dry (using Watco for example).
So yep, that’s it. Nothing more to see here folks, you can now move along :rolleyes: