Very smooth finish when painting

[n000b]

Quick question - how do professionals achieve such a smooth finish on things such as grand piano's as pictured at http://www.woodbrass.com/images/wood...+RX2+NOIR.JPG?

[old_picker]

welcome to the forum

there is no quick answer
you would do well to read the posts in the finishing forum
there are some interesting discussions on finishing on the first page

in fact by the time you have gone through the first 3 or 4 pages you will have answered your "quick" question and got a bit of an insight into this major area of woodcraft

you need to provide some background info if you have a project in mind and if restoring a piano, a few pictures will help the very knowledgeable peiple here to give some definitive answers

[n000b]

Thanks for the welcome and the answer I will read through those threads.

I don't have a particular project in mind - I just built a small cabinet for an aquarium and it wasn't as smooth has I would have like it (I certainly wasn't expecting to get it like the picture I linked! I had just hoped for it to be a bit smoother). So I'm interested in learning the techniques of getting a very smooth finish when painting as I will probably build another aquarium cabinet at some point

[conwood]

Hi nooob,
I have adopted several techniques, depending on the finish used. Each coat seems to raise the grain.

The final finish I use 1000+grit wet and dry paper either with the finish or a furniture polish like F&W Mastertouch, then buff with a clean cloth.

I have recently discovered the infamous EEE Ubeaut product..much discussed on this forum. It's a paste with very fine tripoli powder and very finely "cuts" when applied with cloth. Many use it before commencing to apply the finish. It's not too late to do this on your project over the existing finish. If in doubt do a test piece.

As many others have said before, practice and experiment....luckily for us, this forum gives us all a head start with its wealth of information.

cheers
conwood

[durwood]

The thing which will kill your finish is the base material.

The grand piano is a top class product. the timber used it top grade well seasoned and fine grained.

Using good quality products and lots of work produces the super gloss finish.

It can be neally impossible to get a long lasting finish like this if the wood used moves greatly when the weather changes - and it does.

Even MDF which has no grain and is very stable can move and hours of hard work and expensive materials will result in a finish that often degrades badly over time.

If the base you were painting on was something more stable like steel, aluminium etc there is no problem but timber is poor compared to those.

Although you want to get a great finish the trouble you would need to go to to produce one like the piano would be wasted on a normal piece of furniture such as you aquarium base. Study the posts on the forum and set out to reach the top finish if you wish, using the methods described will give you one in the high 90% with a bit more effort. To get the last couple of % would be probably not a practical expectation.

[jerryc]

As Durwood rightly states wood moves and this can create finish problems. This is something manufacturers take into consideration when creating a finish. The type of wood and where it is positioned affect wood movement. An example I cited recently from my own experience will illustrate my point. I finished the top of a vanity unit that was in the window of a west facing bathroom. This was a situation where extremes of heat existed. The finish was polyurethane (esterpol) and was too rigid. It would not expand and contract sufficiently to match the wood and therefore failed. The woodwork on my boat has to stand up to extremes of weather and salt water and on this I use spar varnish which is hard enough to stand wear yet soft enough to flex with the weather. When choosing a finish, many people think first of polyurethane when they would be better thinking about the treatment their wood would be subjected to.

The other thing is, of course the original preparation of the wood before a finish is employed. A poorly prepared surface will mean a poorly finished piece. A finish is a thin skin and poor surfacing will show through.

I agree with the advice given above. read all you can first. I would however another piece of advice. Take scrap wood, preferably the same wood you want to finish, and try different finishes. Equally try different stains on different woods. Making mistakes on scrap means at worst well coloured firewood but you can sand away your mistakes and try again. I try to keep test pieces with information written on them in texta so I have knowledge of what I've done before and can repeat it if I want to.

It is worth spending as much time understanding finishes as it is understanding wood working techniques because it is the finish by which the average person judges your work. It's not uncommon for a person to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a plane and be reluctant to spend more than a couple of dollars on a brush. Buy good brushes and learn to take care of them. A well used good brush will outperform any new brush because the loose hairs have been washed away.

Read, experiment, and ask questions. The only idiot is the one who has never made a mistake. That's because the person has never really experimented which is the real way to learn. And remember there is no such thing as a stupid question. Everyone of us had to start knowing nothing.


Enough of the lecture. Enjoy.

Jerry

Everyone is entitled to my opinion