Let the finishing... begin!

[K. Mogensen]

Should I finish over these to keep any moisture out? The sanding appears very light.

Also, I was thinking about buffing with steel wool and then some Birchwood Casey Stock sheen and conditioner to take some of the gloss out and clean the bow up a bit. Don't want to eat through the finish though either would just like to get it to a bit more of a satin.

I love the bow to death and don't want to screw it up! Finish on it is actually very good except for the light sanding marks in only a few areas...


 


 

The bow (thanks a ton Jack!)

 

[reddogge]

A few coats of Tru Oil and sanding with 1200 grit wet and dry paper between coats with a final coat left as is should dress it up nicely.

[Phil Magistro]

You could probably take out some of those marks if you wet sand with 800 or 1000 grit and then apply the Tru Oil.

[K. Mogensen]

That may be what I do. There's a few small cracks I'd like to fill, and then wet sand the whole bow with 1000 then throw a few coats of Tru oil on?

Then I'd be able to buff with steel wool and follow up with the sheen and conditioner for a satin look right?

Edit: Forgot to ask too, the finish on the bow has aged very nicely with a slight yellowing, that gives the bow an almost olive color in the sunlight that I really like. Kind of like a patina. Will wet sanding prior to using the tru oil take the color out of it?

[Phil Magistro]

Wet sanding will not take the color out.  You'd have to sand off all the finish to do that.

I don't like steel wool for a satin look.  Leaves too many fine scratches.  I would one of two things.  One is to wet sand with 1500 grit and leave it.  That produces a nice satin finish.  The other is to wait until the finish cures and use a fine auto polishing compound - something finer than rubbing compound.  Not the clearcoat swirl remover, that's a polish that works great if you want high gloss.

[K. Mogensen]

I see what you mean. I tried the steel wool on a different bow this morning and agree that the scratches don't look very good.

I'll definitely try the wet sanding.

Thanks guys!

[K. Mogensen]

Well, after I searched around town at the local hardware stores, I'm drawing a blank for really fine grit paper.

Know where I can get some? Any good online places?

[Jack Shanks]

Walmart usually carries it.

[K. Mogensen]

Ah! :facepalm: I was in walmart, but totally forgot to check the auto section for paper.

Thanks!

[wadde]

Try an auto parts store.

[oldbohntr]

Ask your local body shop where they get their supplies.  Every average size city has a place that sells 1000-1200-1500 and 2000 grit wet or dry paper. For small jobs, I tear off small pieces of each and mark the back with the grit.  For tiny, tight spots, glue a dot of fine grit paper to a new pencil eraser and you'll have a handle on a 3/16" diameter sanding disk.

[K. Mogensen]

Tom, thanks for the tip! I had a hell of a time getting the corner of the sight window and deep part of the grip on my last bow.

While wet sanding, will I need to worry about water getting into cracks, glue lines, ect.? Since I won't be stripping all the finish, I'm assuming no?

Thanks all for the help.

Will have this project underway shortly.  

[Phil Magistro]

I used to wet sand with water but I changed to a light oil. Used sewing machine oil and then, when I ran out, switched to vegetable oil. Much less expensive.  I just don't like putting water on a new finish. On furniture we used to rub the finish with pumice or rotten stone and boiled linseed oil.  That worked great. Rotten stone and linseed oil also gives an excellent satin finish.

[oldbohntr]

Yeah, with the eraser/sandpaper suggestion, you can note what the grit is right on the side of the pencil.

No, K, if you're not stripping the bow water won't hurt, IMO.  That said, I do wipe it often when sanding, and always let it dry completely before finishing. Works fine even with a totally stripped bow.  Have never tried oil, per Phil's suggestion.

Now, as to water getting into cracks - if it can do that, then you've screwed up.  If you detect a crack, fill it with loc-tite 420 before going further. Use the head of a pin or a hypodermic needle to deliver the tiniest drop right to the crack. Guide it along the crack, filling it, but minimize overflow/slop, and wipe the surface(very quickly!)with lacquer thinner.  Then sand with the X-fine wet/dry paper and add whatever finish.  

Back to your original question: most minor marks or sanding marks are not true breaches of the finish.  A good original finish is thicker than you think. Fix the breaches you can find and sand/polish the rest of the finish to a surface you can either spray with a new finish, or-better yet-polish to be acceptable.  Birchwood Casey is one of the spot finishes that actually blends pretty will with many other finishes on old bows. It is a very good solution to making an old bow look good again.

[K. Mogensen]

Awesome info Tom! Yeah, the cracks I'm mainly referring to are the stress cracks. They've been mostly filled, but I think I'm going to go over them again with some loctite. I'll also go over the whole bow to see if there's any I've missed.

Thank you.

[oldbohntr]

420 is the ticket.  But, it's thinner than water, wants to run everywhere, and dries on the surface of your limb almost instantly.  Not difficult on larger breaches, but hard to control on hairline cracks in flat surfaces.  IMO, mild hairline checking is not a complete breach of the finish and the value of the bow might determine how to deal with it. The right way to do it on a bow that is valuable to you is to remove the checked finish and redo the whole bow or the limbs. Or don't- depending on how you feel about it!  On some bows that I plan to shoot, I've just decided to leave it checked, keep it waxed, and see what happens. If the checking worsens and the finish is truly breached, that will be another decision.

[K. Mogensen]

I may end up redoing the entire bow. Want to try wetsanding first to see how it looks, just kind of clean it up. If I don't like it, I'll strip it. Thought I might try keeping some of the originality, but we'll see how it turns out!

Thanks again guys.

[K. Mogensen]

Anyone know how well Loctite professional works? 420's outta stock at Grainger, and holy bejeezus it's expensive. 20 bucks a bottle when I can get Pro for around 5-10.

Thanks.

[K. Mogensen]

Well, my Loctite 420 came today and so begins the process of trying to make my bow even prettier. Or ruining it     :D    .

Loctited all the cracks I could find today, wiping with laquer thinner as I went, put's a haze on the bow, but seemed to go away when I put a dab of tru oil on over my lower silkscreen since that got some of the haze in it.

I'll feel better when I get sanding tomorrow, am gonna start with either P800 or 800 grit, we'll see which works best at getting the haze/glue/sanding-marks-already-on-bow off. Would like to see the bow all nice and sanded an even tone.

Not writing this out to be informational or anything, just incase you guys see me doing something way wrong.      

Show and tell:

Places glued/wiped compared to where I touched up with tru oil.

   

Little bit of something in the bottom left hand corner of the decal but think it'll sand out unless I'm mistaken...

   

More tomorrow when I start sanding after school...

[K. Mogensen]

Well, phooey. Started sanding and by the time you get all the way through the glue over the cracks, you've sanded all the way through the original finish. Guess I'll just strip the thing completely. So much for patina.   :rolleyes:  Prolly wouldn't have turned out good anyway.  

Now I'm left with three decisions: Use the Norton 220 dry that I've got, keep wetsanding with my P800 (in the neighborhood of 450 grit I believe), or go get some 220 wet/dry paper to speed it up. I'm leaning towards just using my Norton 220 dry cause I got it and did my last bow with it, though it wasn't perfect.