Polyurethane finishing

[tommy b]

Our kitchen cabinets are red oak stained lightly with watco light walnut oil stain to bring out the grain and finished with Minwax clear semi gloss polyurethane finish. Over the years, the cabinet doors below the sink have lost the topcoat of poly. I recently stripped the surfaces of these doors with a chemical stripper and sanded them with 220 paper. I found that to match the rest of the cabinets, simply applying the minwax poly to the doors without additional staining with Watco gave the closest match. After sanding with 220 paper and wiping the surfaces with a tack rag between coats, I brushed on two coats if poly to the backs of the doors and three coats to the fronts.The little specks of dust that appeared in the early coats I was able to remove by sanding for the next coat. My problem is how do I remove the dust specks in the final coat? I seem to vaguely remember some thing about #0000 steel wool and then polishing or something. If anyone can give me good directions on just how to remove them and leave the semigloss finish, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

tommy b

[Harry72]

The best option is to do the final coat in a dust free environment.
You could cut it back with fine wet/dry paper or 0000 SWool then wax it, but you will need to do the whole lot of cabinet doors so it matches. You must wait until its fully cured, that can be several weeks in colder weather.

[MacS]

I suggest that you read up on using "pumice and rottenstone," these are rubbing and polishing powders.

These powders will take care of your problem, and give you a fine finish on your work.

Also, try "rubbing" with a brown paper bag to smooth out the dust particles in the dry coating.