Getting out Abralon 2000 swirl marks from final finish

[Acharya Kumarswami]

I am in the final steps of finishing a large table top made of curly mango. I have applied 8 or so thin coats of Waterlox and waited 2 weeks after the final coat, then sanded to get the surface flat. I tried the pumice method, but that was not working for me, leaving uneven sheen. I happened on Charles Neil's videos and took up his advice to use 6" Abralon pads, which he said he uses wet on an orbital sander. I am trying for a satin level of sheen, so thought I would stop at 1,000. Later I found that going to 2,000 was better.

Wet sanding was a disaster for the pads, as they were toast in about 5 minutes of use (500 grit). So I switched to using them dry, which worked better, and they lasted a bit longer. AFter using the 2,000 grit dry, I got out a festool polishing pad (it's white) that I bought a few years ago. To give it some abrasion, I put on some white rough from a stick. As I polished the surface, swirl marks from the Abralon started to become readily apparent (to me, at least). Thinking I needed more muscle with the polishing, I added green rough. That increased the polishing action noticably. But I don't seem to be making much progress at removing the swirl marks. Any suggestions?

[Jerry Thompson]

It has always been said that this product needs a 30 day cure time. I have always waited that long and have had no problem.

[Marty Schlosser]

I'll need to know how you applied the topcoat before giving you a difinitive answer, because my experience with spray applied waterborne products pretty well leaves me with a blemish free satin sheen surface when I use either Target Coating's satin lacquer, polyurethane or latex enamel.

Notwithstanding, from my experience, finishing your polishing with P2000 Abralon discs on a ROS shouldn't have given you any swirl marks, so I'm assuming that somehow when you were wet sanding with the P500 you introduced swirls which the following grit discs didn't take care of. My advice would be to resand with a light touch, starting at 500 dry and working your way up the chain until you're happy with the resultant sheen. But there's a real possiblity you'll sand right through the topcoat because of all the sanding you've done thus far.

Although I've never had it happen ever since I've figured out how best to apply my finishes, years ago whenever my final sprayed coat wasn't smooth enough for me, what I usually did to get a satin sheen was to use Menzerna 2L polishing paste (use very little paste as it goes a long way) to a Surbuf pad I'd mount to my ROS. Even now I wait only about 72 hours for the topcoat to cure then go at it with the polishing. I know some refinishers who wait only overnight before buffing, but I think that's pushing it overly. From my experience, 30 days of curing time is rather excessive, but then it may depend on how thick you're applying the finish and how many coats you've applied and how long you've waited between each coat before applying successive ones. The more, thick coats, with less fully drying time between each will dictate the need to wait much longer before your final topcoat is cured adequately to buff.

I'd be really interested in hearing what others here may have to say.

[Acharya Kumarswami]

Do you use Abralon pad on an orbital?
I am going back over it now with the pads, 1,000 and 2,000 using a padded sanding block.
This and then polishing again, is indeed taking care of the squirlies.
Waterlox specs say 7 to 14 days for curing.

[Scott Holmes]

If you can still smell the finish when you put your nose to it; it is still curing. Cured finish has no smell.

[John TenEyck]

I recently rubbed out a walnut slab that I had finished with Arm-R-Seal. I let it sit about 12 days before rubbing it out. I used my ROS for all of it. I started with 1000 grit then 1500 grit sand paper. Then I switched to 2000 grit Abralon - dry, on my ROS. I got a very uniform, very flat sheen, not even close to satin, and no swirl marks. I moved on to 3000 then 4000 Abralon. At 4000 grit I got a beautiful satin sheen. I would have been very happy right there but I needed a gloss sheen so I moved on to automotive polishing compound.

I would go back to 1500 grit sandpaper to remove the swirls, then move on to 2000, 3000 and 4000 grit Abralon, dry, on your ROS.

John

[David Hawxhurst]

polishing pads and compounds will make it swirl free. you will probably need several different pad types and at probably two different compounds.