finishing Ikea worktop

[tony359]

Hello

I have purchased a solid wood IKEA kitchen worktop which I am going to use as a desk. I am using Danish oil to finish it. I sanded the wood with an orbital sander, 120 first, 240 afterwards. 0000 steel wool in between passes.

I've started from the back side - so I can experiment. It's coming up nice with just one small issue. After the second coat I went removing the excess oil after 10 minutes but 15 minutes later some... spots appeared on the surface. They looked like wet spots of oil and I thought it would be ok. But after a night curing, those spots are still there and the third coat seems not to have got rid of them.

Again, this is the back so not a big deal. I was wondering what I am doing wrong! It's not very noticeable but I believe it should not happen. Please see attached picture.

I am using Liberon danish oil from Axminster. Any help appreciated!

Thanks
Tony

 

[profchris]

Hard to tell from the picture, but those look like low spots where the oil has pooled.

If so, rather more sanding might be needed to get a flat surface. Or, if you're happy not to have a dead flat shiny surface, perhaps apply less oil and wipe off rather earlier. But low spots will inevitably show shinier than high spots.

My experience with oil finishes is on musical instruments, where a high degree of finish is looked for. I'll sand way past P240, usually finishing with P1000 abranet, and those who want a mirror finish go even finer.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

It's hard to tell from your poor quality photograph, but the top is evidently made of a fairly coarse textured wood species. What you're experiencing is quite common with coarse woods, and hardly occurs at all in fine textured wood species. The oil settles in the open pores of the coarser spring growth, and when you wipe off as instructed this leaves a relatively thick covering of oil in those open pores, whereas you are able to wipe off the oil more thinly on the finer textured summer growth.

All that is happening is air in the coarser textured areas forces the drying oil up into a bubble. To reduce and/or eliminate the problem you simply need to keep going back, probably for a couple of hours (longer if cold), and quickly wipe off any bubbles or puddles that form until the finish has cured enough to prevent further bubbling.

Incidentally, with you being relatively new to the forum and with few posts, I wonder if you're aware that Danish oil isn't a pure oil wood finish? It is, in essence, a form of varnish usually formulated of a mix of white spirits, a resin(s), and either or both boiled or raw linseed oil or pure tung oil, plus some other odds and ends in small proportions, all depending upon the manufacturer's particular recipe. Slainte.

 

[tony359]

All that is happening is air in the coarser textured areas forces the drying oil up into a bubble. To reduce and/or eliminate the problem you simply need to keep going back, probably for a couple of hours (longer if cold), and quickly wipe off any bubbles or puddles that form until the finish has cured enough to prevent further bubbling.

I was thinking exactly the same as I could wipe those spots away at first.

Yes, thanks, I am aware that danish oil is not pure oil but I think it's ok for my application - that said, please keep considering me as a newcomer to the subject because I am!

It's hard to tell from your poor quality photograph

aww

Thanks profchris too!

Edit: I've been wiping and wiping to get rid of those puddles. So far it seems to work - even though I had to go to bed last night and puddles were still coming up but in the morning a little steel wool got rid of them. Those spots can be wiped away and re-appear within a few minutes.

I've taken some hopefully better pictures to give the thread a better background.