Danny Boy is BAACK! w/ '55 Big Window

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally Posted by Nut Case

You may already know this, oak is a open grain wood. To get a total shine you will need to do lots of coats....

Yup, I’m aware many coats are needed. I’ve read threads where guys claim they did 20 coats! I don’t plan on doing that many but maybe 6-10 if necessary. Initially, I planned on using polyurethane. But after lots of reading online I came to the conclusion that varnish has a little more “give” to it when the temperature and humidity change. Glad to hear you bear that out!

Once the sanding with 320 shows a truly flat surface all across the boards I’ll do another coat or two and finish with a 1500 grit sand and machine polish as the final finish.

As for grain filler, I’ve read about it. It comes out like a tan, thin putty. Since I was not staining my wood other than natural I decided not to try it but it might work fine. But if it DOESNT? Then what do you do with $400 of oak you don’t like?!

EDIT: Saturday 2/3/18: After much wet block sanding I applied a 3rd coat switching to Satin finish. The sanding cut through the varnish slightly on a couple edges but it’s invisible after the varnish went back on.