I just finished building a small cd cabinet I have been making for myself. Just something to use up some scrap wood.
Now I have a problem.
I just finished putting a coat of minwax furniture wax on it, and it is leaving a white wax residue in the grain and pores of the wood. I buffed it out but it is still there. All over the piece, really. What should or can I do to remove the wax residue?
What did I do wrong?
This is some wood that has been previously stained and I freshened up the stain with a similar color and let it dry well. With two coats of stain I thought it woud be sealed well enough to just use wax as a finish as it will not get much use just me.
Help.
Webby
Replies
webby,
You can stain until your blue in the face and it won't seal the wood. Perhaps you should consider shellac, varnish or use a colored wax.
Try a medium to large horse-hair shoe-brush.
Sarge..
Ok, update on the situation.
I reveiwed some notes and searched on here.
I tried to remove the wax with mineral spirits and paper towels. Didn't have much success. Alot still remained in the wood. But some came off.
Thought about it more and I realized what I did/ what happened. This wood is recycled old pine paneling. I don't know if it was ever truly finished. I freshened up the stain with a similar color. The stain absorbed ok, but it dried to a slick semi hard finish. So I thought I will just wax. I have used wax before, with success.
But, the idiot I am I was in oil and wax mode. I guess because of the slick feel of the wood, and waxed with 4/0 steel wool. Drove the wax right into the wood.
I thought what the heck, I reapplied another coat of stain. Seems fine. I wiped off the excess and stain is drying now. If any wax shows up I have been hitting it with a dab of stain.
My theory is that the oil in the stain with the previous applications of mineral spirits is enought to flood the rest of the wax out of the wood.
Now the question is I want to rewax but with cotton cloth, not steel wool. Should be fine shouldn't it?
Webby
Edited 8/2/2008 4:53 pm ET by webby
Should be.. but let the results dry throughly before you re-apply wax. Then use a horse-hair shoe brush. If you wax and lot and don't have one.. I would suggest getting one. I have a small.. medium and large. Not a synthetic... but horse hair which can be found by Google or at most boot shops.
Good luck...
Sarge..
Ok, a horse hair brush?
What type of sheen does it give you?
I have used oil and wax in the past, waxing over a coat of minwax antique oil finish and didn't really have any problems.
I am kind of new to oil and wax so any advice and tips are appreciated. I realize the minwax mignt not be the best anyone have a favorite recipe, or combo.
I have wanted to try some of the tried and true stuff.Webby
You didn't say what type of wood Webby.. but I am guessing some type of open grain? The wax put on with steel wool will penetrate the pores. I also apply wax with Liberon steel wool over a shellac finish as it not only puts wax on but acts as a rub-out that knocks shellac down from gloss to a satin.
Edit.. if you are using like Danish oil and not oil stain with wax over it.. I do it often. I thought this was oil based stain... But before I apply wax I let the Danish (or whatever) oil cure for about a week and wipe any oil that comes to the surface off frequently, especially the first 24 hours. It will keep coming up as small beads until it is thoroughly dry.
The horse-hair is fairly stiff (not like a wire brush of course) and will take the wax out of the pores. A shoe brush is also great for getting in corners.. nooks and crannies. Any soldier that has ever put a shine in jump boots that comes short of a "spit shine" (which is basically the same as french polishing with shellac) knows a horse-hair brush is the best thing to take wax off as the tips of the bristles just get down in those pores.
I learned about using shoe brushes in WW from guys that are in the Georgia WW Guild years ago. Some even apply wax with a separate horse-hair brush. And from military experience I can tell you almost every soldier has one in the days before the high-tech materials they use now that keep a permanent shine. Wimps... ha.. ha...
Just try one as I can't give any scientific explanations as the finish guru's might.. I just can tell you it gets wax out of pores. :>)
And when I mentioned drying.. I did mean what you did to dissolve what was on. Then put on new wax and get let it haze for a few minutes.. Not necessary to let it sit too long as it's just harder to come off that way. A coat of wax is very.. very thin.
As mentioned by the guys.. I do use wax with a darker tint to penetrate the pores and counter the possible white that not getting it out will usually generate as I do use lots of oak and don't fill the pores.
Regards...
Sarge..
Edited 8/2/2008 9:23 pm ET by SARGEgrinder47
Apply a thin coat of tinted wax a section at a time. Let it dry (wait thirty minutes or so). Thoroughly brush with a shoe-brush until you get a fairly decent sheen. Don't mash the bristles down by applying too much pressure. The ends of the bristles are the business end, not the sides of the bristles. The vast majority of people use way too much pressure. After brushing, buff with a soft cloth. Move on to the next section. Repeat steps.
Even when using tinted wax you don't want to leave a collection of the wax down in the pores. A coat of was should buff out to be a few molecules thick, at most.
Ok thanks for the help everyone.
I probably should have used a harder actlua finish before waxing. and have in the past. Form my update post, I started this morning fresh and waxed with dark wax. much better results but I did get some of the white residue back. I call it residue but it is in the pores of the wood. It was horrible yesterday, the peice almost looked pickled. I am used to the wax that is left over here and there but this is different.
I think it results in using the steel wool and not being able to get the wax totally out of the wood. When I put the dark wax on it seemed fine but I did have a few spots show up.
If I could take a close up I would.
I am a little puzzled because I did have the same thing happen on a blanket chest I built aout of the same wood. I hope the problem doesn't show up again and I can figure out what I did if anything wrong.
Webby
>> I am a little puzzled because I did have the same thing happen on a blanket chest I built aout of the same wood. I hope the problem doesn't show up again and I can figure out what I did if anything wrong.What wood are you referring to? It sounds like it is a deep pored wood. When you wax unfinished or oil finished deep pored wood, the wax dries in the pores. As you know, wax that dries, dries white. No buffing, even with a shoe brush, will be guaranteed to affect the wax deep in the pores.The trick is to use a film forming finish that partially fills the pores with finish preventing the wax from getting deeply packed in. Or another choice is to use a tinted wax if the wood is dark. Minwax makes a dark wax and BriWax has a whole line of tinted paste waxes. With the Briwax, be sure to use the Briwax 2000 which is standard mineral spirit solvent wax. Their Briwax Original contain toluene which will attach oil based finishes less than a year old.Howie.........
I am sorry I should have beeen more clear about the wood. This is some salvaged knotty pine paneling that had a stain applied and not much of anything else as far as a can tell.
I follow what you are saying with the wax in the poors of the wood. I think that is definitely what happened to the cd case.
However with the blanket chest unless I rubbed thru the oil /varnish which could have hapened it seems almost like there was a reaction of some sort. perhaps a spot of the finish wasn't as dry as I thought.
I don't have a digital camera, I have sent pics via my cell, but I can't seem to get that to work now so sorry for not giving an overall picture of the look of the peice.
I am actually pleased with the design. I am jus tmaking it for me so I am noot really trying to be picky. I just wanted to get my cd's organized.Webby
Sarge had your answer, use the shoe-brush.
Webby,
I agree with the horse-hair shoe bursh.
Then -- get Minwax's dark wax. I have waxed a number (few hundred) things and anytime I have less than a perfectly smooth finish, I use the dark wax. No white blobs to hid in nooks and crannies.
Alan - planesaw
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