How to slow down Arm R Seal

When finishing a larger surface, like a dining table top, I've been having issues with Arm R Seal setting up too quickly. What happens is the section that I start with begins setting up, and when I move along, the edge doesn't remain wet enough to blend in with the edge of the next section if that makes sense. Even moving briskly, I cannot achieve a seamless flow from one section to the next. I have tried cutting the Arm R Seal with some mineral spirits, maybe 10%, but this has not helped.
I don't recall having this problem with Arm R Seal before, but it's definitely happening to me now.
Any suggestions?

I assume you are brushing?

Switch to wiping perhaps. Use a full sheet shop towel, dipped to soak and gently squeezed of excess. Wipe in swift wide circles and figure 8s from one end to the other. Don’t go back and blend. If your towel is wet enough to cover without leaving bare streaks and not so wet that youre dripping off the edge, it should blend and pop any tiny bubbles.

I hear you though. Large tables are tough. No chance to spray? It’ll change your life .

General Finishes an extender you can add to their water based finishes to extend their drying time. I have used it and it helps. I have also used a foam paint applicator with a women nylon footie. These suggestions were found on their website.

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Originally Posted by George Bokros

General Finishes an extender you can add to their water based finishes to extend their drying time. I have used it and it helps. I have also used a foam paint applicator with a women nylon footie. These suggestions were found on their website.

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Arm-R-Seal is oil based.

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Originally Posted by Prashun Patel

I assume you are brushing?

Switch to wiping perhaps. Use a full sheet shop towel, dipped to soak and gently squeezed of excess. Wipe in swift wide circles and figure 8s from one end to the other. Don’t go back and blend. If your towel is wet enough to cover without leaving bare streaks and not so wet that youre dripping off the edge, it should blend and pop any tiny bubbles.

I hear you though. Large tables are tough. No chance to spray? It’ll change your life .

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Hello Prashun,
I should have clarified my application method, yes, I'm wiping on. Instead of shop towels I am using t-shirt material folded on itself a few times into a loose type of finisher's ball. I wet it with mineral spirits first, and then dip into the finish to get the saturation level you're describing. But I've been doing back and forth overlapping stripes in sections, and maybe I'll try the circles and figure 8s.
Someone told me that mineral spirits can vary brand to brand and odorless vs non-odorless in terms of flash. Maybe I will try a different one. It does not help that I live in the Southwest where the humidity is low.
I also received some advice to try a little Turpentine instead of MS.

Thanks,

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Originally Posted by Edwin Santos

When finishing a larger surface, like a dining table top, I've been having issues with Arm R Seal setting up too quickly. What happens is the section that I start with begins setting up, and when I move along, the edge doesn't remain wet enough to blend in with the edge of the next section if that makes sense. Even moving briskly, I cannot achieve a seamless flow from one section to the next. I have tried cutting the Arm R Seal with some mineral spirits, maybe 10%, but this has not helped.
I don't recall having this problem with Arm R Seal before, but it's definitely happening to me now.
Any suggestions?

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Turpentine should also work as a thinner and I believe flashes off a bit slower so it might provide some extra open time.

Easy enough to do a little test. Three little cups, each with A-R-S. One at 100%, one at 10% MS and one at 10% TURPS. Bit of scrap wood prepped same as your table.

Before messing around with MS or turpentine, I'd personally try the undiluted arm r seal out of the can; it's quite forgiving normally.
Don't ball up the rag. Get it flat. That allows you to cover a larger area quicker and more evenly.

Think 'swift'. The quicker you move and the less you go back to an area, the better. It's not a French polish, it's a diner table wipe down. Wipe it down like an employee would do: quick and just enough to call it done.

I had the same problem on a large walnut slab I did a few years ago. No matter what I did with it full strength it would set up too quickly and give me streaks where I tried blending it together. I finally resorted to thinning it 25% with genuine mineral spirits and applying the first 3 or 4 coats with a foam brush. I applied each subsequent coat as fast as the drying would allow, using the pinky test to determine when it was ready. If you pinky doesn't leave a finger print it's ready. Then I let those coats dry long enough that I could sand the top dead smooth, probably at least 24 hours but I can't remember for sure. In any case, the finish needs to sand to powder and not stick on your sandpaper. I used my ROS with 325 grit IIRC. Then I applied 2 or 3 wiped on coats with the finish still cut 25% using a blue shop towel wadded up inside another, sort of like French polishing (I think.). I still ended up wet sanding up through 2000 grit after a 12 day cure to get it dead flat again and then used automotive polishing compound to bring it to a semi-gloss sheen.

My experience with the random wiping technique has never turned out well on large surfaces. At least with gloss I could always see swirl marks in it.

I really, really like ARS, but on large surfaces it's never been a straight forward process for me, so I switched to spraying EnduroVar. They've changed that product to EnduroVar II and I haven't heard good things so I can't recommend it. But I can recommend MinWax's Oil Modified Poly. My friend did a dining table top with it earlier this year using a foam brush to apply it and it looks sprayed. Since it's a waterborne you could add GF's Extender to it, too, if needed, to slow it down. Here in NYS in the spring he used it straight from the can w/o issue.

Good luck.

John

I should have caveated: I rarely use gloss. I also have trouble with a swirl free surface on a high build, gloss. But on a low build or satin-semi, I've found it to work even on large surfaces.

Is the troublesome varnish from an old can? Varnish in a partial can start to polymerize in the can. It is still fluid, but it is not as runny as a fresh can.

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Originally Posted by Frank Pratt

Arm-R-Seal is oil based.

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My bad. I confused their two too coats.

Penetrol will slow it down.
Try a sample to make sure it's what you want.


Penetrol has been around for a long, long, long time. 40/50 years ago, when oil based paints were the norm, painters used it all the time so they could paint in the direct sun without the paint drying too fast.

I have an update on this issue and I will post it here in case my finding is useful to anyone else.

The can of mineral spirits I am using is the Klean Strip brand from Home Depot, not the eco friendly one, just the traditional type in the gold and blue tin. It turns out that this particular can (batch?) of mineral spirits is flashing off much faster than any I have ever used before, including the same exact brand that I have purchased in the past.
I'm not a chemist and cannot say precisely why this is happening. Maybe they changed the formulation, or maybe there was a substitution of an ingredient as a result of all the supply chain disruption. All I can tell you is this particular container of mineral spirits is aspiring to challenge Naptha for flash and set up time.
I think when I was adding it to my finish as a thinner, it was acting like a drier. I would have been better off using the finish straight out of the can even though I typically prefer to thin a little. But what I did was thin more which only made it set up even faster.

How did I confirm this? I performed an unscientific test of swiping some mineral spirits from the misbehaving can and some from another can onto a finished surface, and the fast flashing one evaporated entirely, about 4-5x faster than the other one.

So bottom line, I changed thinner and my Arm-R-Seal application is back to what I remember in the past where it is not too difficult to maintain a wet edge and flow one area into another. My recommendation to all - double check your solvents to the extent you can, to confirm the performance characteristics.

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Originally Posted by Edwin Santos

I have an update on this issue and I will post it here in case my finding is useful to anyone else.

The can of mineral spirits I am using is the Klean Strip brand from Home Depot, not the eco friendly one, just the traditional type in the gold and blue tin. It turns out that this particular can (batch?) of mineral spirits is flashing off much faster than any I have ever used before, including the same exact brand that I have purchased in the past.
I'm not a chemist and cannot say precisely why this is happening. Maybe they changed the formulation, or maybe there was a substitution of an ingredient as a result of all the supply chain disruption. All I can tell you is this particular container of mineral spirits is aspiring to challenge Naptha for flash and set up time.
I think when I was adding it to my finish as a thinner, it was acting like a drier. I would have been better off using the finish straight out of the can even though I typically prefer to thin a little. But what I did was thin more which only made it set up even faster.

How did I confirm this? I performed an unscientific test of swiping some mineral spirits from the misbehaving can and some from another can onto a finished surface, and the fast flashing one evaporated entirely, about 4-5x faster than the other one.

So bottom line, I changed thinner and my Arm-R-Seal application is back to what I remember in the past where it is not too difficult to maintain a wet edge and flow one area into another. My recommendation to all - double check your solvents to the extent you can, to confirm the performance characteristics.

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Thanks for the update. There are so many reports of quality of mineral spirits being varying wildly.