Spraying a Custom Finish - Part TWO

OK - time to get busy! First things first, we need to clean the pieces of contaminants so our finish will be able to apply evenly. I combined this step with raising the grain and lightly sanding the grain down flush.

Start with Naptha - this is basically lighter fluid - very flammable! 

Wipe down the entire thing with a Naptha soaked rag, then LIGHTLY sand with 220. The Naptha removes all the waxes from your piece. Warmoth parts come very well prepped - I probably would've been ok just skipping to the finish, but I had no idea what kind of tools they used during production (grease, oils) or how many people handled this thing before I got to it (your hands have lots of oils on them, even clean ones. WEAR GLOVES!!) so I didn't want to take any chances here. For the sanding, I didn't need to apply any downward force, just the weight of my rubber sanding block was enough. When you wipe down the piece, you'll be able to see little furrs of wood grain start to pop up - this is what you're sanding down flush.

Next step is removing any oils - the book says use mineral spirits, this wax remover I had laying around is almost 90% mineral spirits, so I used it instead.

Now, wipe down with some generic ammonia to remove any mineral spirits and silicone left. You're supposed to knock it back with water (1/4 cup ammonia to 1 quart water). I forgot to do this, and used straight ammonia. no issues, really, other than the smell, and it may have just slightly yellowed the wood, but that's the look I was after anyway, so I didn't mind.

Here's my sanding block

After all that has dried, bust out the old wood filler! For this finish (Vintage Blond) I used neutral filler, which looks sort of whitish-grey. Timber mate is the best! This stuff is well worth the money! StewMac was all sold out, but woodcraft had it super cheap and they shipped it to me in like 3 days!

Here, I sprayed a very light, very thin layer or two of vinyl sealer. This helps with adhesion and gives you something to sand down to when smoothing out your grain filler. It will look like it's just soaking into the wood, which is good! Shoot for a satin-like finish here, not too thick, not too thin.

Here's my cheap-o HVLP gun I bought from wal-mart. It's a Campbell Hausfield. Works great!

More on grain filling and finish application next time. Cheers!