A new finish continued
The table is now finished (or is it refinished?), and on its way to the customer. Although I’m still experimenting with the Ultima Spray Lacquer (USL), it has proven to be nearly trouble free. With the varnish I was using, I continually tweaked the finishing schedule in the quest for an ideal finish. I doubt such an approach will be necessary with the USL, because even at this early stage, the results achieved with it are not only flawless, but painless.
For mahogany, which makes up the bulk of my work, I color the wood and then depending on grain type, I enhance the color with the thinnest possible coat of dyed or plain Tried and True Danish oil; swirl and crotches should only be enhanced with the plain oil. After the oil has cured a day, I apply oil based grain filler. The oil and filler are allowed to cure at least 7 days, and a padded on coat of de-waxed dark shellac is applied to seal the oil/filler and to further enhance the color. I let the shellac cure overnight and scuff sand it.
Now comes the fun part, spraying on the USL. I followed, to the letter the instructions where it said to stir for one minute. I strained the finish through a 190 micron strainer. Being a card carrying cheap skate, I rinse these out and reuse them. The USL has a pretty high solids content, so over a filled mahogany finish, you’ll only need three un-thinned coats to build a good thickness. I put these coats on in quick succession, with just the minimum drying time between coats. I’ll freely admit I’m a lousy sprayer, but the HVLP gun, makes me look like an expert (See below for the equipment set up). I position the table so I have good lighting that lets me see spray pattern. To insure even coverage, spray from side to side and then from front to back. The USL comes out kind of milky, and wrinkly, but after just a few minutes, it clears up and smoothes out.
I let the first three coats dry for 24 hours, and wet sanded with a 320 grit sanding sponge to level the finish. If every thing looks good (it always has) then move on to the two final coats. These final coats are thinned about 5%-10% with distilled water and double strained. As I noted in the first installment on this finish, the lacquer does not burn in 100% if allowed to dry more than about 2 hours between coats, so I’m careful to apply these with no more than an hour and a half between the coats. These flowed out and looked great.
After a 5 day cure time, I did the rub out, which is the icing on the cake; it rubs out more easily than shellac. The rub out, is one area where some more tweaking of the process is in order. For the test panels and the candlestand, I used 800 grit paper and followed with rottenstone on a felt block; using water as a rubbing lubricant. I wrap the sandpaper around an eraser, which gives the prefect backing.
On this table, I used 1000 grit paper and the rottenstone. In the future, I’m going to try 1500 or even 2000 grit paper and skip the rottenstone, because I noticed a huge improvement in the appearance by going from the 800 to 1000 grit. I’m also going to see what effect a longer cure time (7-10 days) before rubbing out would do. Even after a five day cure before rubbing out, the USL will turn a little milky from the water used in the rubout. At first I thought this would make it prone to water rings, but after a longer cure time, the lacquer shows no reaction to water; I left a wet rag on a test panel for at least a day, with no ill effects. The only problem with the rubout, is how tenacious the sanding slurry is, you have to keep the surface fully wet, and clean up the top immediately. A little soap in the water would help ease the rubout, but I’m worried about contamination, should another coat be necessary.
The USL looks great with everything from a fairly dull sheen to a wet gloss. The varnish I had used, on the other hand tended to look cloudy with anything but a near wet gloss, which made balancing it and the shellac used on the rest of the piece, a real challenge. It also, looked a little plastic when left with a full gloss. The USL has much better adhesion than the varnish, which surprised me. The varnish always felt like I was stretching a layer of plastic food wrap over the surface. As long as the surface film remained intact, everything was okay, but even a mirror break in the film could lead to a serious delamination, such as where the hinges on the leaves pinched the finish.
In the past I’ve been disappointed with the results when I wax a piece of furniture. I had one breakthrough when I learned to completely clean the surface of all the oil used in the rubout (on varnish and shellac surfaces I use mineral oil as a lubricant) Still, it wasn’t perfect, so I have not used wax. Then I read an article by Peter Gedrys that was full of excellent information. Just the other day, the person who bought the card table, told me he cuts the wax with a little mineral spirits. I tried this on the table, and for once I’m totally satisfied with the wax finish. 
In the test panels I did, I wanted to try using the finish as a filler for all those inevitable (but tiny) depressions around the inlays. With the varnish, it dried too slowly and shrank too much, to use it as the filler, so I used clear burn in sticks. With the USL, I was concerned about the compatibility of it and the burn in sticks. I thought that if the USL didn’t shrink excessively, its fast cure time, might make it a useful filler; one with no worry about compatibility. As it turned out, it worked better than I had hoped. I used an artist brush to dab a bit of the USL on the problem area, and then quickly sprayed the surface; this caused the brushed on application to flow out and blend in beautifully.
The equipment setup is very basic and for the outstanding performance, inexpensive. The gun is the Qualspray QS-125WB, with an in line regulator, and a 1.5mm nozzle set. The compressor is a 4.5 gallon pancake compressor from Porter-Cable. The simple stand for the spray gun, has been very helpful, and I can’t understand why I didn’t have one for the touch up gun I was using for spraying dyes and lime; I never could sit it down.
Well, I guess that is enough about the Ultima Spray Lacquer, for now, but it will come up again, as I’m sold on it.
Rob Millard
