Thread: CA Finish - what am I doing wrong??

personally, I think more than 3-4 coats is overkill, unless you need to build up the finish to meet diameter.
My recipe: sand to 400, do not wipe the dust off!
put a drop of BLO on a paper towel and while running the lathe slow, hold the towel under the blank and spread a bead of THIN CA over the surface, filling in small voids with the dust you just made. do not use accellerator on thin CA. by the time you get the BLO on the towel it will have dried.
sand with 400 until sheen disappears, wipe off with BLO.
use the small plastic bag that parts come in over your finger while you spread a dab of medium CA over the surface, spray with the mist of the accellerator, sand to 400 grit lengthwise til sheen goes away, wipe.
repeat as many times as you like, I do it no more than 3 coats.
repeat above using thin CA as a final coat, 0000 steel wool lengthwise, take to the buffer, polosh with tripoli, clean, square up ends, assemble.
Hope this helps.

BLO and using the dust to fill the voids with thin CA sounds good Glenn. But does the paper towel remove the dust onto the BLO anyway and not spread it? I tried the plastic bag once but only ended up with ripples and the wave effect on the blank so I only use paper towel now to apply the CA

This is my method, https://www.woodworkforums.com/f101/d...utorial-71248/

Works for me and even though it has been along time since I last did one, I was still able to get that perfect finish first up at https://www.woodworkforums.com/f8/ano...lready-151952/

After that weekend, I visited Peter (Sturdee) as he was having problems getting a good finish, but he had it down pat at GJ's, so we went through his process and found that the CA nozzle was dribbling too much on, new tip with smaller hole fixed that. Other problem was that CA didn't seem to be building up and leaving a good coating. The paper towel Peter was using was sucking up all the CA instead of leaving it on the blank, so we swapped it for the Viva Towel that I still had in the car from GJ and straight away saw the difference.

Ps, even though my username is different in the linked video, DJ's Timber and I are both the same person.

Hey Arry,

I only do Blo and CA finish and don't use anything else, What part of Perth are you in ?? maybe we can get together and have a chat ?? send me a PM if you are interested.

HazzaB

I've found blo to slightly colour, and i do mean slightly colour the wood when its applied, so i dont use it, others swear by it and love it, to each their own.

I rekon though if your just starting both DJ's and Davids vids are excellent "beginners start here" (incl. me, i learnt from these guys) material and substitute the activator useage for a wait of about 2 mins, this enables you to get used to the hand movements, think about what your doing between coats, and better organise yourself, and the stuff your using. You do get used to it rather quickly, and then add in the activator as a speed thing later on once you've got the process down and are happy with your progress and results.

Neal.

This works great for me.

Les

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f207/t...-med-ca-81287/

I use the same paper towel that has the BLO/ dust on it when applying the first layer of thin CA, it works for me, Then I go to plastic bags. I only get ripples that need excessive sanding if I use thick CA.

Originally Posted by plantagenon

BLO and using the dust to fill the voids with thin CA sounds good Glenn. But does the paper towel remove the dust onto the BLO anyway and not spread it? I tried the plastic bag once but only ended up with ripples and the wave effect on the blank so I only use paper towel now to apply the CA

Arry

Check the Timberbits website for MM. It will be hard to get a better price on that.