Mirror finish from wipe on poly- mahogany table

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I am building this massive (120” x 42”) mahogany table with my students and we used polyurethane cut 50/50 with mineral spirits and wiped on. It looked so good that I sent a pic to my brother and he asked about it, so I did a video of it. This wasn’t really made for YouTube and there is a part where I say to hit the bubbles with a blowtorch. That was a joke with the guys because I showed them how to do that with epoxy and they were afraid it would catch fire. With this application, use a heat gun, because this will catch fire. (I would assume). I added a comment to the video after the fact. Again, it was really made for my brother.

As you will see, this is an open-air shop with a dirt/concrete/asphalt/chicken poop/cat poop floor. It couldn’t be a worse environment for finishing and we don’t have a space at the moment for a finishing room. I do have one at my own shop, but not at the school. We don’t spray finishes to avoid OSHA issues. There are plans to build a new facility with a proper finishing room.

Just sharing this so you can have confidence if you don’t have a proper setup. You can still get a good finish. This is a great method because it dries really quick so contamination is less of an issue.



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[Stan Calow]

Very nice! Did you use a grain filler?

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Very nice! Did you use a grain filler?

On the first coat we wet sanded the poly during application with 400 grit. It worked well to fill grain in this ribbon mahogany that can have insanely porous grain.

[Phil Mueller]

Beautiful, Malcolm. That’s one of those finishes you just can’t help but run your hand over it. Great tip on wet sanding the poly...I’ll have to give that a try.

[Prashun Patel]

Really beautiful. I’d be curious to see if you get any shrink back into the pores over the next few weeks.

[Andrew More]

Curious which brand of poly?

I ask because I've tried this before with Minwax Helmsman Spar Varnish, thinned 50/50 with mineral spirits and then brushed, and I had some minor issues with the finish. Nothing super bad, but definitely not that beautiful mirror like shine you had there.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Really beautiful. I’d be curious to see if you get any shrink back into the pores over the next few weeks.

We have done a lot of these and although it takes a lot of coats (10+) to fill all the pores, it is a solid finish. Many of our tables end up in restaurants that have indoor/outdoor seating. They get fairly abused.

Curious which brand of poly?

I ask because I've tried this before with Minwax Helmsman Spar Varnish, thinned 50/50 with mineral spirits and then brushed, and I had some minor issues with the finish. Nothing super bad, but definitely not that beautiful mirror like shine you had there.

I use Minwax Helmsman for exterior doors. I do find it doesn’t like to be thinned as much as this Varathane interior poly. I believe the difference to be the UV inhibitors- speculation only. I can certainly say that Minwax Helmsman is thicker than the Varathane interior. I go through about a gallon of each per week. For some reason my Home Depot stocks Minwax for exterior and Varathane for interior- or else they are always sold out of Varathane. Not surprising as this is boat country.

[glenn bradley]

Great stuff Malcolm, thanks. I am going to have the expression “keep your wag ret” echoing back to me for years to come.