white residue problem

I was wondering if anyone else has encountered a problem I had today. I am building a picnic set out of Australian Red Cedar and have pre-finished some of the components before assembly. I have used 6 coats of U-Beaut Hard Shellac wiped on as the finish over the otherwise untreated cedar. I let the shellac harden 3 days and this morning started buffing it with a new Swansdown buff and EEE. Everything looked fine until a white residue appeared in the pores of the timber as the EEE was buffed out. It looked a bit like the residue you might get after Brasso dries. Unfortunately it wasn't apparent until I had finished a panel about 300mm square :oo: . I stopped polishing and considered my options. I thought it might be dried EEE in the grain structure and that if I applied Traditional Wax it might disappear. No luck. By now I was beginning to despair so I rang Neil (the Man) and asked his advice. He hadn't encountered the problem before but suggested wiping over with turps to see if that removed the offending material. Whilst this did make the white disappear for a time it reappeared as the turps dried. I tried applying some shellac - no luck. So now time to get desperate :aargh: . I tried a hydrocarbon solvent designed for circuit boards and even acetone. These made it disappear temporarily but it reappeared as they dried. Nothing moved it. The only joy was how well the Hard Shellac held up to all this abuse - one tough finish that :2tsup: . Time out for some hard thinking. I considered sanding and refinishing but the panel was dimensioned and I would have to remove considerable timber to get down below the open grain structure where the white material was. Then I looked hard at another panel that hadn't been buffed and noticed how dark the open grain pores were - virtually black. So how about a stain? Tried Feast Watson Prooftint Oak stain on an inconspicuous spot. It darkened the white residue but the spirit carrier was pretty rough on the shellac so I put a small amount of stain in a mix of 3 parts ethanol to 1 part Hard Shellac and wiped it on. After a number of passes I got the panel looking about 95% of what it did before I touched it with the EEE. Still some persistent white in some areas but I suspect no one but me would notice it. So a spirit-based stain saved the day but has anyone else had this problem :? ? Any suggestions as to something I may have done wrong etc? Frankly I'm not game to use EEE now but everyone else seems to use it without any drama.

I got the same result with organoil on kauri pine and am not confident with using it (burnishing).
I, too would be interested in any opinions.

Carry Pine

I had the same problem as horizontalborer.Made a nice jewellery box from australian cedar,gave it several coats of shellac, wet rubbed back to a smooth finish,applied EEE and buffed with swansdown mop,pores in cedar all filled with white gunk. It now sits on the too hard shelf ,until I have another go at it.
nine fingers:~

It occurs to me that it micht be fluff out of the mop.

Obviously the pores are not fully choked up ( filled ) and someting has got in there.

It is a problem in pen turning that on pale (particularly open graned) woods you have to be very carefull when sanding and polishing that you don't contaminate the grain.

cheers

A couple of dumb thoughts....

Are you manually buffing it or using ROS/polisher to finish?

Since it doesnt seem to take stain readily (as you would expect cotton to) it doesnt sound like cotton dust off the buff. But since it mostly dissapears when wet, that suggests that it is a porous structure of something reasonably transparent.

If you are power finishing, you could be partially melting the hard shellac finish and pushing it into the pores. (if you've ever cut PVC with a hacksaw you'd know the way plastic likes to melt and gum up). Since turps/acetone doesn't seem to worry the hard shellac - or the white stuff - this would be my best guess.

Or it could be zinc stearate residue (thats the white stuff on no-fill/no clog sandpapers).

Methylene chloride and start again?

You want a dumb idea.

You've come to the right place.

I'm on the same track as Soundy. It isn't stuff which the EEE is cutting just choking up the pores is it? Remember EEE is a cutting compound.

I used EEE the other day for the first time, it is over minmax wipe on poly, I thought it looked a bit plasticy, (is that a word?) The EEE softened the harsh shine and mellowed it out, looks good now.

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Originally Posted by nine fingers

I had the same problem as horizontalborer.Made a nice jewellery box from australian cedar,gave it several coats of shellac, wet rubbed back to a smooth finish,applied EEE and buffed with swansdown mop,pores in cedar all filled with white gunk. It now sits on the too hard shelf ,until I have another go at it.

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Was the mop you used shedding a lot of dust nine fingers? If so this might lend more weight to the cotton dust theory (see below). As for having another go at it - I guess you could try what I did so long as you haven't applied anything that might inhibit the uptake of the stain since the white stuff showed up . I guess you would need to use a spirit based stain like I did in order for it to have any chance of getting past the wax component of EEE. That presents a risk tho because the spirit will soften the shellac so the this is not for the faint hearted but my only other option was a complete refinish so I had little to loose. Mixing the stain in diluted shellac made this much less of a problem for me.

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Originally Posted by soundman

It occurs to me that it micht be fluff out of the mop.

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This occured to me too Soundman. The mop was new and although I dressed it there was still a lot of fluff and dust being shed into the shed (pardon the pun) it wouldn't surprise me if it clogged the very open grain stucture of the cedar. I raised this with Neil (the Man) and he thought it unlikely but I reckon its my number one suspect. I guess the real test will be to condition the mop thoroughly on some scrap and try some cedar again and see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Master Splinter

Are you manually buffing it or using ROS/polisher to finish?

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I'm using a stationary machine - effectively like a bench grinder - 2880 rpm.

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Originally Posted by Master Splinter

Since it doesnt seem to take stain readily (as you would expect cotton to) it doesnt sound like cotton dust off the buff. But since it mostly dissapears when wet, that suggests that it is a porous structure of something reasonably transparent.

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Actually it did take up the stain a fair bit which is how I got out of this mess eventually. I would suspect that the wax in the EEE would contaminate any cotton dust and make it less likely to take up stain a bit anyway which could explain the few persistent patches of white I ended up with after staining.

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Originally Posted by Master Splinter

If you are power finishing, you could be partially melting the hard shellac finish and pushing it into the pores. (if you've ever cut PVC with a hacksaw you'd know the way plastic likes to melt and gum up). Since turps/acetone doesn't seem to worry the hard shellac - or the white stuff - this would be my best guess.

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I guess this would be my second suspect after cotton dust. In a way I like this answer a lot less than the cotton dust theory because it means that the problem can reoccur at any time (rather than just when using a dusty mop). And I was particuraly gentle with the buffing to avoid excessive heating or cutting of the shellac so if I still got a problem because of this then I definitely won't be using EEE again except on non-porous materials.

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Originally Posted by Master Splinter

Or it could be zinc stearate residue (thats the white stuff on no-fill/no clog sandpapers).

Methylene chloride and start again?

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I don't think it would be stearate - I've used no-fill papers a lot and never had any problems with finishing after using them.
Thankfully I didn't have to go the methylene chloride - that would have been too ugly to contemplate.

Sounds like I will have to do some experimentation to come up with the definitive answer. That or borrow an electron microscope to have a gander down the pores of some contaminated wood to see what is going on. Cotton dust should be pretty conspicuous. Any of you woodies got a spare scanning electron microscope knocking about your shed that I can borrow?

Cheers

At least for me you can eliminate the mop theory..didn't use one. I followed the organoil procedure which i have done before and had a slurry going but when it dried i had the white stuff in the pores (used black papers on the sander). my answer was to cut the whole lot back and sand to 1000 grit and then just rub the organoil in. it resulted in a smooth but flat finish and no white stuff in the pores. (timber = old Kauri pine)