Wattyl Craftsman Natural Teak Oil over poly???

I am currently building a hall table/console table. I decided i'll do a wipe-on poly finish, even though im not a big fan of on-surface finishes..simply because I suck at applying it evenly, and when i rub it back i end up rubbing through several layers of poly leaving visible edges of each layer.

so i made a test piece of spotted gum about 350x100x14mm and did a few coats of poly, rubbed it back and sure enough i rubbed too hard in places leaving those visible edges.

So i decided to do the Wattyl Craftsman Natural Teak Oil method of 2 coats of there matt poly,and there oil over it. using the same test piece I had already ruined, I gave it a lick of oil, rubbed it in with 0000 steel wool and wiped of the excess with a clean rag. It left a flawless finish.

my question is. how does this work? how does the oil penetrate through the poly...or into the poly? am i simply rubbing mineral turps (which is branded wattyl scandinavian teak oil at 40bux a litre!!) over the poly and slightly disolving the surface and leveling with steel wool/cloths? kinda like when using a 80% thinners/20% laquer mix for the final coat of a lacquer finish to make it dry super fast and disolve the previous layers leaving a smooth flat surface?

I dunno much about finishing...i usually just finish with a ROS and oil..because too much oil, drips etc etc = all good, nothing to worry about.

the test piece worked well, so ive started to rub back the hall table which has had 5-6 coats of feast watson WOP. im rubbing back using that wattyl teak oil stuff as a lubricant. The finish of the WOP off the wiping cloth is pretty poor (horrendous really) and it has lots of highs n lows through it needing lots of rubbing to level it out. eventually though it gets to a point where I have shiny parts (the low spots) and dull spots (the high spots). the dull high spots kinda look like the leftover sticky mess left behind from sticky tape that has been on for too long. I can rub this out with heavy pressure and 0000 steel wool, and it doesnt seem to rub through the bottom layers of poly regardless of how long and hard I do it. it is leaving an even satin sheen finish. have i rubbed all the way back to timber? i dont think i have, but as i say, i can rub much harder and longer and still not effect the low shiny parts which kinda suggests i'm on bare lightly oiled timber. the timber was sanded only to #320 and the finish is well above what would be left by 320...finish much closer to a #4000 wet burnished.

As for the wipe on poly did you sand this off meaning the term you used rub back?

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Originally Posted by Christos

As for the wipe on poly did you sand this off meaning the term you used rub back?

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when i say 'rub back' i mean, to use 400 grit sandpaper and 0000 steel wool to firstly remove dust nibs and secondly level the surface so that i could buff up to whateva sheen i feel like, using the wattyl teak oil over the top of the poly, which seems to me to be nothing more than using turps as a lubricant, but thats what the can says to do, 2coats poly, then teak oil over it. i decided that i have finished the hall table all except for attaching the drawer pulls. the finish is 'ok', nothing to write home about. it feels smooth, and while just looking at it without creating acute angles to look across the surface, it looks acceptable. looking across the surface with good focus you can see that the surface is not flat, hills and valleys (albeit, its probably the thickness of 0.003mm, but it can be seen), not the valleys created by the coarse grain.

after giving the problem more thought, i figure the poly just hadnt cured enough, it sat in the garage for about 6-7days after final coat, but with cold foggy nights and no heating in my house. my guess, there was slight solvent entrapment between the last and 2nd last coat (i didnt leave much time between these 2 coats, maybe 5-6hours) and so when i rubbed it out, i really just peeled off the top layer of poly.

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If you had not given it enought time to dry then it might have been just removing the part that had not dried. The way I can tell that I had not let it dry enough is by dry sanding and if the sandpaper is clogging I know that I have just given myself more work to fix it. :doh:

i have used WOP and even in colder weather. I don't really put too much on and I leave it for a little longer between coats if it is cold. One other thing I have done is take it inside the house to apply the finish.

the sandpaper did clog up a little bit, but i put that down to using a random orbital at 4000rpm and that was enough to create too much heat on the sandpaper surface. it was leaving a dusty surface though

out of curiosity. when using WoP, i generally just quickly wipe it all on in any direction, then lightly drag the cloth across the surface going with the grain (but it seems like i do more damage to the finish surface when i do this, tends to create a low point where my fingers apply pressure to the cloth feathering up to nothing on the edges of cloth. a bit like a cambered plane iron) can i just quickly wipe on in any direction and let it self-level, or does that leave a mess of brush/cloth marks? also, how thick of a film should i apply per coat? visibly thick, so much so that if i stuck my finger in it it would leave a noticeable depression. or super thin, effectively just making the surface look wet with fresh poly?

That's a bit of a tough question to answer how heavy a coat of WOP to apply.

Personally I generally apply very thin coats. This sort of developed due to me making pens via the lathe and only need to apply very thin coats.
On flat pieces I would decant into a plastic cup and dip the rag in the solution. Then press on the side of the cup while holding the cup, to lessesn the amount on the rag. I have overlapped the last stroke with the next one. One direction and with the grain.

Now that been said I have seen videos of people applying very heavy coats and wiping off the excess. I have tried that with some success but for me I guess I prefer to have thin coats.

i hope this helps.

Kuffy

In the past I have used the matt varnish and teak oil over the top. It worked very well. The trick is to apply two coats of matt varnish at 24 hr intervals and then leave it for at least 48hrs before applying the teak oil with fine grade steel wool. In cool weather I would extend the 48 hours before oiling as you are really waiting for the varnish to harden.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Kuffy

In the past I have used the matt varnish and teak oil over the top. It worked very well. The trick is to apply two coats of matt varnish at 24 hr intervals and then leave it for at least 48hrs before applying the teak oil with fine grade steel wool. In cool weather I would extend the 48 hours before oiling as you are really waiting for the varnish to harden.

Regards
Paul

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Paul, do you know what the oil does on top of varnish, other than lubricating the steel wool? it seems counter intuitive to me. 2 coats of poly should seal the timber (not completely..but pretty close to 100%). applying the oil over a sealed surface gives it no where to penetrate, so it just sits on the poly surface, and by the time i wipe off the excess i reckon i would have removed nearly all of the oil? it is times like this I wish i was a chemical engineer. when i try to google for things like "oil over poly" it just comes up with a bunch of "poly over teak/tung/linseed oil results" <- this i can understand (oil to pop the grain, poly to protect it).

Nice table, by the way!

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Originally Posted by Kuffy

Paul, do you know what the oil does on top of varnish, other than lubricating the steel wool? it seems counter intuitive to me. 2 coats of poly should seal the timber (not completely..but pretty close to 100%). applying the oil over a sealed surface gives it no where to penetrate, so it just sits on the poly surface, and by the time i wipe off the excess i reckon i would have removed nearly all of the oil? it is times like this I wish i was a chemical engineer. when i try to google for things like "oil over poly" it just comes up with a bunch of "poly over teak/tung/linseed oil results" <- this i can understand (oil to pop the grain, poly to protect it).

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Kuffy

I think you pretty much have it in that the oil acts as the lubricant in a combination of smoothing and polishing. There is a possibility that if you rub too hard for too long you will go through the varnish surface and into the timber below. That is not an issue unless you previously stained the surface in which case you are going to destroy the colouring.

However, in reality I think you would have overdone the finishing process if that happens. All I can say is that the result of this process is a silky smooth surface with a satin finish. An advantage is that at any time in the future it can be rejuvenated by applying more oil with steel wool again.

Regards
Paul