Help with Lacquer finish

[Robert Holmes]

Hey I was working on applying some finish to a couple Christmas projects last night.  I was following Marc's method he used in the humidor build for a high gloss lacquer finish.  I applied a coat of lacquer last night using a brush as I don't have any spraying equipment and when I check on it this morning it had white patches in it.  I was using Watco Lacquer Gloss Finish.  I was wondering if this was what's referred to as blushing as I don't have a lot of experience with lacquer.  My shop humidity was around 40-45 and temperature was 15C (59 F).   The surface itself is smooth (except for some minor runs) and does not look pitted.  If it's a temperature problem, I might be able to get the shop up to 18-20C (64-68F).

 

The full finishing process I used was:

Applied 1 light coat of boiled linseed oil to pop the figure and allowed 24 hours to dry.

sprayed a light coat of the same brand of lacquer from a rattle can and allowed it to dry overnight.

Pour filled using a wood filter.

Ruff sanded the excess filler off using random orbit sander using 220 grit which gummed up the pad's badly.

Wiped away dust with damp cloth to see progress.

Proceed to wet sand with 400grit to remove more of the wood filler which worked great and left a nice smooth surface.

Proceeded to wet hand sand the acrylic boarder up to 13000 grit for a high shine.

Wiped the whole thing down with rubbing alcohol as denatured alcohol isn't available in my area.

Let it dry until it looked dry about 20 minutes later.

Brushed on a medium coat of the lacquer and called it a night.

 

My main question is can this finish be salvaged or should I sand it back down until the white stuff is gone and start again?  I've already accepted the fact these won't be done in time for Christmas and would prefer the project to turn out great rather than rush the process.  I have 4 of these on the go, 3 in walnut which shows this problem like in the pictures and 1 in maple that has it but it's not overly noticeable.  I'm really excited about how these look where the finish isn't messed up.

[wtnhighlander]

Robert, the same blushing issue happened to me a few days ago. I was spraying, but temp and humidity were very similar to you conditions. I ended up spraying another coat, which redissolved the pre ious coat and erased the white patches. Before spraying the second coat, I arranged the piece on a piece of plywood so I could bring it inside the house to dry. No heat in my garage shop.

[AceHoleInOne]

The issue is not blushing. The issue is from the beginning and the BLO not allowed to throughly dry. Compounded by the wet sanding afterwords. Notice how the white area is around the heavy figured areas. 

 

Your wood is extreemly porous from the figure. So figure =  endgrain and endgrain = thirsty and drank the BLO way down into the wood. You didn't mention what kind of wood filler used or how long you let the wood filler dry before and after wet sanding, that would be helpful. Your first clue something is not right, is how your sandpaper was gummed.

 

So as the BLO was gassing off it was trapped under the wood filler. The BLO had gassed up through the filler then trapped under the topcoat causing the white areas as it attempts to pass up through the topcoat. In addition, I bet the sealcoat of spray lacquer didn't do anything to seal the figure down and your wood filler was pulled down like your BLO. The moisture of wet sanding more than likely was pulled down into the figure compounding the problem as moisture tried to push up though the topcoat.

 

The fix in my book is to strip the piece and start over.

 

-Ace-   

[Robert Holmes]

Ok Ace, I figured since it was only a veneer 24 hours would have been long enough dry time in the BLO. I likely did rush the wet sanding to the finish coat of lacquer. The wood filler did dry for approx 24 hours before I sanded it down, I figured it was the filler and lacquer seal coat gumming up my paper. There was no white areas under the initial seal coat before I used the wood filler. Next time I will give that 24 hours to dry completely from wet sanding. I just tried to make a Christmas delivery and now I'm paying for it in additional work on top of missing it.

Looks like today will be spent sanding, I'll let them dry until after Christmas before I attempt to put another coat of lacquer on.

[tuno]

I am in the humid southeast and get the same white haze on all of my lacquer projects . The only way i can prevent it is to take it into the air conditioned house or place a heater on it immediately after it is sprayed.

[dwacker]

I am in the humid southeast and get the same white haze on all of my lacquer projects . The only way i can prevent it is to take it into the air conditioned house or place a heater on it immediately after it is sprayed.

 

Try a retarder.

[T-astragal]

13000 grit ? Wow!

To me, 150-180 on the wood is about right. Polishing to that high should be done after the top coat. In other words you sand/polish the lacquer not the wood. That's what determines the final look and feel of the surface. Use 320 between coats until the surface has a nice build up and is smooth and level, then you can polish the surface to your hearts desire.

And like PB said retarder misted over the blush will normally remove the cloudiness.

Steve

[foremancr]

I live in Southwest Florida and I have this problem a lot...  Is there another way of getting around the humidity problem???  I don't want to bring it into the house where the AC is because the house and the wife will go crazy over the smell.  I don't want to use heat because it is very hot already, in the 90's.

[dwacker]