General Poly Finish Questions From a Beginner

[Brice_Arnold]

I posted this in the WTO blog, episode 29 but thought I might get more input here.

I recently worked on a couple of projects involving stripping and refinishing a piece of furniture and some hard wood flooring. On both I stripped them down to the bare wood, used some sanding filler (two coats) and finished with a clear water borne poly.

1. The furniture piece was a dresser made from maple. Only the top had the finish worn off so this is the only part that I refinished. Unfortunately when I was done the top was significantly lighter (more natural) than the rest of the piece. The rest of the piece had a yellow tint. From a previous TWW video it would seem that this yellow tint may be due to an oil based poly finish vs a water borne poly. Is this correct?

2. I have a general question about thinning water borne poly. I have tried googling but most results come back for oil based poly. So here it is, can you thin water borne poly with mineral spirits. Are these two elements compatible?

3. When I was doing the hardwood flooring (oak) my work flow was apply poly, let dry, smooth out with 320 sander, vacuum, clean with tack cloth soaked in mineral spirits. After the first couple of coats I started to get an issue with the poly beading up, almost as if there was oil on the surface. On the final coat I some how screwed it up where the floors became blotchy. It almost looked like the mineral spirits had soaked into the grain creating dark soaked stains. So I stripped it again and started from scratch this time avoiding the mineral spirits and using a water soaked cloth as a tack cloth between coats. This seamed to resolve the problem.

4. For both the furniture piece and the flooring I tried every method known to apply the poly and couldn’t get a nice smooth finish. I tried a synthetic pad with the little micro fibers, wiping, brushing, sponge, lambs wool. Nothing worked. Of the bunch, I had the most success with the synthetic pad. However I would leave what would appear to be a smooth finish to dry and come back to a bunch of air bubbles. If I tried applying a thin coat I would have patches that would look dry and dull where the rest would have the sheen of a freshly finished surface.

5. Do all varnishes require some buffing/polishing after the finish drys? If so what do you use. I read somewhere about you using a paper bag to buff, what about +1000 grit wet sanding or a polishing pad. I use the festool product so if you can recommend something for their RO sanders that would be appreciated.

6. In general, are the oil based poly's easier to apply than the water borne poly’s? I really want to jump into learning about proper finishing as I believe this can make or break a project. However, call me lazy, I don’t want to learn from trial and error; this is not very enjoyable. I would prefer to use a tried and true method that is easy and yields beautiful results. From what I have picked up from the podcasts, it sounds like the oil based finishes are the way to go. I guess the only reason I selected the water borne was because of the odors.

Thanks for any help you can offer