Desperately Need Help: Varnish On Veneer Problem

[EagerBeaver71]

3 coats of sanding sealer in one day ? Are you drying it in the sun ? Thats good if you are .

Are you coating it on straight out of the can ? No thinning ? Brushing it on ?
If yes to all that then keep going . It may be thin SS if 3 brush coats only does that .

Hi Rob,

The garage is very hot at the moment so they dried pretty quickly. The sanding sealer was laid on with a brush quite liberally.

Could it be that the veneer is so thin that the underlying ordinary ply is showing through?.

[EagerBeaver71]

If it stays to light looking in the open grain you may need to fill the open grain with a darker or a matching grain filler.

There isn't much open grain left to be honest. I think I might leave it and take all the boards back, I've had a sheet of American Oak which only required a couple of coats of varnish and it came up beautiful.

[EagerBeaver71]

I think the veneer is so thin that the underlying ply and glue is showing through and contrasting with the red oak.

[EagerBeaver71]

Just an update and to close off this thread.

Not one to be defeated I did a little testing of my own using the "wet finger" technique taught to me by Rob. Instead I used white spirit. I found that from the dozen boards I brought, there were 3 where the white spirit didn't sink into the grain so I concluded that
there must be some sort of manufacturing defect. It just so happens that the board I choose to start putting finish on was one of bad oens!(my luck!).

From what I have gathered the defect is one of two things. Either the glue used has bled through to the top of the veneer or the veneer itself has a problem like not drying out properly and/or tannin issue.

Forest1 who supply the boards to Bunnings are investigating (hopefully). The only way around this, and like Rob said I would have to fill the open grain with a darker or a matching grain filler. This would have been alot of faffing about so I took the boards back, some were cut (ooops!) and got a refund and went to another bunnings and got another batch.


Here is the result of 3 coats of Bleached Shellac / 2 coat of gloss varnish:

IMG_7904.jpg IMG_7905.jpg

I'm sure you'll agree its a stark difference!.