Fix "hot spot" in new table finish

[Chris McLeester]

Is there any way to fix these "hot spots" without stripping the entire table?

I just finished building it and the stain was perfectly even colored. I put on a coat of poly and some flies landed in it (it was under a light). I used a chisel and some sandpaper (600 grit) to clean it up. Most areas were fine, but there were some areas that looked lighter. This was where I had taken off a lot of poly. I thought maybe it just needed the poly evened out and applied another coat. You could still see the areas.

I then sanded off the poly and tried to restain the areas. They still looked lighter. But I tried another coat of poly. They're still there.

Thoughts on what to do? Or why the stain didn't seem to take the second time?

[Chris McLeester]

Is it possible the stain "sealed" the wood? I'm surprised I could sand off the color but not open it back up. Is there any way to "open it" again?

[Wayne Lomman]

Chris, what happens is that the poly takes up some of the stain so that in effect the first coat of poly ends up slightly tinted. When you sand through the colour, you don't take all the poly out before you start to lose colour. So yes, the surface is still sealed which is why the stain is not taking to the timber again.

To fix the problem, I am hoping you have a spray gun.

Mix up a brew that is about 10% poly and 90% solvent. Add to this enough stain to make a colour about 1/3 the strength of the stain you used on the original job.

Put it in your spray gun and turn your air pressure down, tighten up the needle control and narrow the fan as much as possible so that you get an easily controlled fog.

Now use this to carefully blend in the light patches. Keeping the colour a bit weak means you can go back and forth and gradually build up the colour. Practice on a piece of white paper so that you can see what is going to happen before having a go at the real problem.

When you are satisfied with the colour, apply a full coat of clear to the whole top before you sand it again.

Good luck. Cheers

[Chris McLeester]

That explains so much. Thanks, Wayne! The advice on how to fix sounds intense. :-D I have an HVLP gun...so maybe I'll give it a go.

Could I just strip the whole thing instead? I'm not confident that I can do that precision type of work on only small areas.

[Wayne Lomman]

Chris, by all means strip it and start again if you want to. What I would suggest though is that this a perfect opportunity to have a go. If it doesn't work to your satisfaction, it won't be any harder work to strip it and you will have gained the experience. And you might be better at it than you think. It is not as precise as you think either. The colour is made a bit weak so that you build it up with multiple passes. Cheers and good luck with it.

[Chris McLeester]

Ha! That's a great way to think of it. I've always got a fall back plan. Appreciate the help. Now I've got something to do on Sunday. :-)

[Chris McLeester]

Problem solved! As always, it took longer than expected - apologies for the late update.

I couldn't quite get Wayne's method to work. There was always overspray, and I couldn't get it to look right. From later experiments, I believe that I didn't use enough stain, my nozzle doesn't adjust to tight enough, and I didn't allow enough drying time.

So I decided to strip the table and refinish it. Proving I don't learn from my mistakes, I sanded in between coats of poly - barely touching it with 600 grit. Well, this was enough and I took some color off again. Faced with refinishing it, I tried something else.

I took Wayne's magic mixture (90% mineral spirits, 10% poly, some stain) and applied it with a paintbrush. I let it dry overnight and reapplied. The color was now a good match and the spots weren't noticeable, except when you could see the edge of the patch in certain light. I tried to poly it, and everything self-leveled nicely. There was no noticeable spot.

Thanks, Wayne!

[Wayne Lomman]

I'm glad it worked. The job looks good. Cheers