Sanding sealer for defects?

[scotty60]

seen some front doors done with old railway sleeper that were machined down to about 60mm thick and all the holes and cracks were filled with clear resin then stained and cleared ,these doors looked absoultly fantasic i was very impress but the price tag of $14000 bit to much for me

scotty

[kman-oz]

I've been out and purchased some casting resin this afternoon, coulnd't find Norglass, but my experience with Diggers products is good. I'll try that out tomorrow.

Um, Techniglue was a bit of a failure unfortunately. Maybe it's because I mix it to thoroughly but I managed to get a lot of air trapped in there and it's set a funny opaque blue colour. Not... really... what I was going for

As a test I tried filling a scrap peice with timbermate, then a light sand followed by sealer and French Polish and it also looks quite nice. After showing this sample to the customer he's asked if I can also stain it darker. Perhaps walnut.

So I have a new question: In what order? I'm thinking water based stain, then sanding sealer, then resin, then finish with Shellac. I'm limiting myself to water based stains only because I can be fairly certain that these won't interfere with any of the other steps. Does this sound ok?

Finishing is not something I have a lot of knowledge about, so feel free to fill me in if I'm missing anything. I do have a copy if Neil's handbook to brush up on also, but Neil discusses casting resin in passing only.

[johnc]

I simply add the stain to the casting resin, seems to work ok. Generally its one of the Feast Watson stains, which has a lot to do with local availability. Generally though I dont use stain with resin leaving it clear.

[silentC]

Regarding air bubbles, you can remove them by blowing over the surface with a hair dryer, or even just with your own breath.

I haven't had any experience with the diggers brand stuff. I've never seen it go blue, but I suppose if you have a lot of bubbles it might refract the light that way.

If you have a deep open void to fill, it's sometimes a good idea to wet the surface with a bit of the un-catalysed resin first - this helps prevent bubbles from forming on air trapped in there.

I've never tried it with stain, so not sure what would work best there. I usually fill the voids first, then scrape the excess resin away with a card scraper (must be very sharp). Sand the whole panel down to 400 grit, then apply sanding sealer, then sand to 800 then pad on shellac.

You have to be very careful when sanding or scraping the resin because it's harder than the surrounding wood and you can easily end up with valleys around the filler. Important to use a block if hand sanding.

[kman-oz]

I simply add the stain to the casting resin, seems to work ok. Generally its one of the Feast Watson stains, which has a lot to do with local availability. Generally though I dont use stain with resin leaving it clear.

The Feast Watson stains I saw at Bunnies were alcohol based, and these work well with the casting resin? If so that's great, because I can make any stain colour I like with these.

silentC, the blue air bubbles I experienced were from the Techniglue, not the casting resin. I haven't tried the casting resin yet.

I think I'll have to experiment with the order to see what works best. I still think staining first is the best option, otherwise there might be some unseen resin still left in the pores which might interfere with the stain.

Incidentally, Neil's book recommends not using alcohol based stains under Shellac because they might be drawn out of the surface when the shellac is applied. I played with a few test peices over the weekend and found this to be something of a non-issue using the Feast Watson stains. I also tried making a tinted sanding sealer use the FW stain and shellac which worked very well. This is a lot of fun!

Thanks for your help folks.