Sanded through the dye layer - what to do?

[John TenEyck]

I was finishing a little desk project a couple of days ago. The process started with a dilute coat of dye followed by 3 coats of clearcoat. I applied the dye and one coat of clearcoat and then carefully, I thought, scuff sanded with 400 grit sandpaper. When I vacuumed it off I saw that I had cut through the finish and dye on two little areas near the corner of the top and side, each area about 1/2" in diameter. Hmm, now what? After considering all the poor options I decided to try filling in the missing color with an artist's brush. The dye was Transtint in DNA. I knew it would wet the wood w/o issue but I wasn't sure how it would react on the edges where the clearcoat was. To my relief it wet onto it with no problems and I had quickly restored the color w/o leaving a heavy ring of color around the edges. Two more coats of clearcoat and it's impossible to tell where I made the repairs. One of the repair spots was right near the left front corner, the other two or three inches back along that edge.




Sometimes you get lucky. I'm going to keep this one in my arsenal of repair options if (when) it happens again.

As an aside, this was my first time using Target Coating's EM-6000 Acrylic Lacquer, satin sheen. It was a can I've had way beyond it's expiration data, probably 4 years old. But it was fine, sprayed great, and dried very quickly. Moreover, it looks great. The dye I used was very dilute, 1 drop in 15 ml DNA. I did not use a coat of SealCoat over the shellac as I often do, yet the EM-6000 showed none of the plastic look you often get with WB finishes. No clue how durable EM-6000 is but it sure looks nice.

John

Oops: I meant to post this in the Finishing Forum.

[Mark Hennebury]

Great job on the repair, and a fine looking desk, I like the combination.

[Phil Mueller]

Well done, John. I have a set of the Blandal touch up powders that I mix with DNA for repairs such as yours. Always great when a repair goes well!

[Jim Becker]

I agree...great recovery.

As an aside and about "old finish", about a year or so ago, I used up the last of a gallon of the old Oxford USL that was left over from the mid-2000s in my finishing cabinet. It was just on some shop fixtures or something like that, but it gave no indication of issues. That was a major surprise considering this stuff was a quite few major and incremental generations back from the current EM6000 formula. I started using it when it was "PSL" even earlier in the 2000s.