How to finish a lacquer finish without polishing compound

[Matt Clara]

I have a small box (blue tooth stereo) that I've finished with lacquer. It has some pretty open pores and I don't want to polish it up for fear of getting the compound down in the pores and ruining the whole thing. Question is, how else can I finish it? Can I just 0000 steel wool it into satiny submission? I'd like it to be gorgeous, still, and while I don't mind satin, I don't want to just haze it up, so to speak, so, what's the best way to go about this? Or any other advice you might have as how to proceed?

Thanks! Happy holidays, folks!

[Jim Becker]

Perhaps just buffing with minimal compound will get you where you want to be.

[Matt Clara]

Perhaps just buffing with minimal compound will get you where you want to be.

Thanks. I haven't been completely forthcoming. I have two of these and I already screwed one up by getting the compound down in the pores. It's deep in there and no amount of rinsing and wiping with mineral spirits is going to keep it from looking white when you look at it dead on. At an angle it's not too bad, but I'm going to have to sand it and refinish. I'm trying to figure out how to avoid this on number two. Reading around the web it seems paste wax and steel wool with long strokes with the grain is the way to go, or some other lubricant instead of the paste wax. I was hoping someone into old fashioned finishing techniques here would be able to tell me what they've done in this situation.

[Steve Jenkins]

Mohawk has a product called wool lube paste or wool wax. Not really a wax or a paste but used with 0000 steel wool and a little warm water then buffed with a soft cloth. If you don’t like the looks it can be top coated with lacquer. Gives a nice soft look and a great feel.

[Matt Clara]

Thanks! This fellow mentions it in his article on rubbing one out (rubbing a finish out, that is), here: https://www.woodshopnews.com/columns...-the-deal-well I'll head down to my nearest woodworking shop tomorrow and see if they have any. That article mentions a few other options, too, like Murphy's oil soap, but they seem to favor the Mohawk product. Wool-lube.

[Matt Clara]

So I went down to Johnson's Workbench in Charlotte, MI today, they're the shop that carries the Behlen and Mohawk and all kinds of fun stuff ya'll would enjoy--I'm lucky they're just a couple of towns over from me. They didn't have the Wool-lube, so I told the guy there, Matt, what I was doing, and he suggested I try getting the gloss like I'd originally planned by rubbing it out with pumice and rottenstone using Behlen's paraffin oil, which, kind of like wool-lube, is just for rubbing out finishes. I've seen since then that I could have tried mineral oil instead, but it was 50% off, and it worked well enough, I guess. It's not super glossy, but it's glossy enough for me. The paraffin oil doesn't leave an oily residue that I notice, but I plan on wiping it all down with denatured alcohol before final assembly anyway. It smelled like naphtha mixed with gun oil and was on the messy side. To apply the pumice/rottenstone mixed with the paraffin oil I used a wood block with a felt layer wrapped in a couple layers of saran wrap, which seemed to work well, and if it left anything down in the pores, I can't see it. I wet sanded it up to 2000 grit first, I should add, though I just hit 600, 1000, 2000. I think they look real nice, "they" being the separate parts of the speaker: legs, front, back and the cabinet itself. I left this comment in the hope that it might be of assistance to someone else.

[David Utterback]

Could you please post pictures? Thanks

[John K Jordan]

...To apply the pumice/rottenstone mixed with the paraffin oil I used a wood block with a felt layer wrapped in a couple layers of saran wrap, which seemed to work well, and if it left anything down in the pores, I can't see it....

While reading this thread I was also going to suggest trying pumice then rottenstone. I apply with a "rubbing pad" similar to what is recommended for french polishing - wad up some cloth or cotton and wrap a cotton cloth tightly around the wadding and use a wire tie to hold it together. The pads I use for woodturnings are small, less then 2" in diameter. I dampen the pad with oil then put a very small amount of the 4F pumice on the bottom and rub, repeat with the finer rottenstone. I don't go for a mirror polish.

This has worked well for woodturnings for me. I'm certainly no expert.

JKJ

[Phil Mueller]

Matt, thanks for posting. I may be misunderstanding, but didn’t the Saran Wrap get chewed up by the pumice stone? Don’t really understand the Saran Wrap part...

[Matt Clara]

I just didn't want to make two separate padded blocks, so I put on the saran wrap to keep the pumice/rottenstone from getting into the felt and I replaced the saran wrap between grits. It did not get chewed up and seemed to distribute the pumice/rottenstone just fine. I was pleased with the result, although I'll never use the paraffin oil again, as the speaker smells vaguely of machine or gun oil.

https://imgur.com/a/RRfZyox