The bathroom make over continues. Mimi picked out the lights she wanted- after I had finished the painting. She picked 2 lights, unfortunately there is only one mounting box/access. I really didn't want to have to cut into the freshly painted wall and mount a retro box, so we settled on an escutcheon plate style mounting piece.

 

Kiln dried Red Oak. Acclimated to shop for approximately 2 weeks. Planed to 3/4". Oil based stain- Varathane- dried for 3 hours. One coat of Minwax gloss poly- dried for 12 hours. Sanded lightly with 220 grit.

 

 

This is the second application of the same gloss poly. Tiny bubbles and they are not in the wine!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is fairly warm today- about 80°- and the bubbles formed at the "open" grain ends. I guess there was enough air expansion to create this effect. I'll wait until it is completely dry and see what I can do. 

 

 

 

Weird. I bet you can rub them off like a nib with 220 grit paper.

 

It's Red Oak bro.
Remember ever hearing you can make a straw and drink through it?
The end grain never changes and always has the ability to do this.

Never heard the drinking straw thing, but I've heard the old sawyers would make a quick Red/White Oak check by blowing smoke into the end grain. If it came out of the other end it was Red Oak.

 

Well Lew, maybe you should've tried blowing a bit of smoke..heehee. It's happened to me, too. A little sanding is all it will take....and another coat. To avoid this in the future, a coat or two of polymerized oil (I use Watco) would seal the pores ahead of the poly.

 

 

 

Thanks, everyone for the tips and ideas!

I've not worked red oak before. Interesting. Apparently a sealer coat is the order of the day.

 

What surprised me was that the bubbles occurred on the second application of poly.

 

Yah I caught that. But for the fact of it being fresh lumber I'd have shouted ORANGE PEEL and asked you about prior uses of Pledge or other furniture polish. But it being Red Oak and being as porous as it is how about the fact that the wood was not riven, but sawn and the sawing cut through various of the grain leaving the little tubes open on the faces and your first coat just didn't close them up. Maybe the second didn't either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet another great finishing topic up from the archives, some great tips here about Red Oak.