Finish disappointment

[John Keane]

I have built a dresser out of curly maple and some not so curly maple.
After several missteps I resanded to bare wood, applied a coat of thinned shellac as a sealer and then applied a transtint dye followed by several coats of Bartleys gel stain. Finish at this point was fine, showed some blotchiness, but not excessive. I then applied seven coats of high gloss poly (thinned) and the results were very good.

I let the poly cure for a month and then started the finish the finish with the Menzerna products. The curly maple results are satisfactory. Not Per Swenson results but acceptable. The not so curly maple did not fare so well. Satin finish was the best I could get.

All the wood was finished the same way, sanded up through 1500 grit before applying the Menzerna using my new Rotex.

I would appreciate any insights as to where I might have misstepped or can improve my results either on this piece or future pieces. Thanks

[Howard Acheson]

Probably the number one thing you can do if you want a high gloss finish is to not use a poly varnish. Poly is added to varnish to increase its resistance to scratching. Basically, rubbing out or sanding is scratching. With poly you do not get an even scratch pattern. In general, the glossiest finish you can get with poly is the gloss right off the brush. Attempts to rub out to a high gloss are generally not wholly satisfactory.

Instead of a poly varnish, try using a non-poly varnish. There are a number. Waterlox Original Gloss is as tough as any poly and will rub out nicely and looks very nice on darker woods. Behlen's Rockhard is another varnish that is very tough and looks nice on lighter colored woods. You can also use P&L #38, McCloskey Heirloom and a Sherwin Williams varnish.

I'm not familier with the system you used. I sand my finish with 400, then 600 and then 1200. At this point I have a nice satin finish. If I want gloss, I change to a white automotive polishing compound and finish with Maguires Swirl Remover. The last two are applied with a power buffer. This gives me a glass finish.

[Steve Schoene]

Howard is right on about the problems of trying to rub out polyurethane.

As far as why one maple took the finish differently than the other I'm not quite sure. Was one of the maples soft maple and the other hard maple? Did you notice that the varnish seemed to soak in more on one than one the other for the first coat or two?

[John Keane]

Howard, thank you. I would have been ahead if I left the poly alone. Steve I am not sure that I can answer your question. The non curly maple was a disappointment from the start. I didn't recognize the difference until I was well into the project and the non curly was used on two large drawer fronts. I appreciate your help. Hopefully I will be smarter next time. For the record I did test hop the process on a piece of curly maple and was impressed with the results.