How I get that glass smooth top with polyurethane Tips and Tricks for Furniture Makeover

do [Music] hello on today's episode of busted a buffed we're going to be cooking up polyurethane i've had a lot of y'all ask how i get this really glossy top on these pieces so i figured i would do a little tutorial in this video while we had the opportunity to show you how to do that [Music] first thing is i have a blood brush i've already dipped it in mineral spirits and then wiped it off it just kind of keeps the poly from sticking to the brush real bad and then we're going to use mid wax polyurethane there's other polyurethanes i like to use it all depends on what time of year it is with it being so hot right now in the middle of summer this is very thin it takes more coats to get the build up that you want but you're not going to run into weird issues with it drying out or getting fish-eyed or anything from it drying too fast from the heat so we use this during summer all right biggest thing is just go with the wood grain you will see me on the outside i'll go up and down this way and then blend it in it just keeps it from getting a bunch of build up and running over the edge doing it that way so i just do it that way you want to be kind of quick with the it's not as bad as poly acrylic that dries real fast where you can't go over it again but it still will get tacky quickly so you just want to lay it down generously and spread it out i said with this being thinner it's a little more forgiving than some of the others also if you use this polyurethane and you let it sit for a little while it will get thick and they're gonna have to thin it up again to get it to act the same way biggest thing i tried to do is just get it covered first and then i'll go back through and try to spread it also if you just stained your piece you really want to make sure you're going the same direction of the wood because it will pull a little bit of this stain back up and streak it if your wood grain is going this way and then you start painting this way you'll have streaks up and down they'll be real noticeable if you have streaks going in the same direction of the wood grain nobody's i'll catch it now i'm just going to go back and forth spreading it out evenly and it has some self-leveling problem self-leveling properties to it because how thick it is so it will settle itself down so you won't see the brush strokes in there and even if we did get some brush strokes i'm going to show you in a little bit how we get those out see it's already starting to get tacky because it's so hot out here if this was a thicker polyurethane we'd be pulling the poly right back off of the staining wood with the brush all right now i'm just going to go around the edges catch where the drips and run downs are on the edges and work it in you see these right here you don't want to let them sit too long because they'll actually pull some of the stain off the wood and it'll change the color and you'll end up with a drip look in your stain so you really want to try to be quick when you're doing all this you don't have to worry about covering this edge with a ton of product because we're going to come back through for another coat or two and we can add more then so don't try to get too heavy with it and get runs and stuff just get your base coat put down on there all right there's our first coat i'm going to take and put this in a jar with mineral spirits in it so it'll be ready for me to use on the next coat now with this being outdoors in the elements it's going to get trash in it it takes so long to harden up that anything floating around in the air is going to get in there then when you run your hand over it's going to feel like little pimples all in there but don't worry we're going to address all that and i'm going to show you how to fix it okay it's been about two hours it's not completely dry if you run your fingers on it it feels a little sticky but it's not pulling any of the it's not leaving fingerprints it's not pulling any of the poly up that's right where we want it to be to knock it down now i've had some people ask so i wanted to take a moment to clarify you don't have to go at it right at two hours and depending on humidity and temperature it may take longer than two hours to dry but if you want to let the piece sit for a day two days three days and then go back and wet sand it and you as long as it's hardened up you're good we just don't want to go at it too soon when it's still tacky and will get messed up with the sandpaper this is wet sandpaper for automotive it's thousand grit i get this at the auto parts store i'll put an amazon link for some just like it from 3m or it's made for doing uh paint and body on automotive it's what they use to wet sand out scratches before they buff but this is what i like to use and then this is a wet sanding sponge just made for this it's hard foam on one side and soft foam on the other side we're going to use the hard foam side since we're doing a nice flat surface just roll it up like so just like that and again we're just going to go with the wood grain now i've got my spray bottle here this is just water with just a tiny dab of dawn just so mixed in with it the water and soap act as a lubricant for the sandpaper it also helps keep the sandpaper clean there's chances you can get little specks of debris in your sandpaper which will cause scratches and dry sanding is a little more abrasive and can also cause scratches soak my sponge down you can also take this and just dip it in a bucket of water and do the exact same thing a lot of uh body shops do that and we're just gonna we're not gonna press real hard we're just gonna let it glide across the top and just knock any texture that's on there away and knock any of the debris that's on there out of it all right just spray it with the bottle and we're just going to let it work back and forth again with the grain don't go against the grain because if there's scratches and it's a blade this helicopter cover again just spray it then we want to go with the wood grain the direction of the wood grain if you go against the wood grain you're going to see little scratches whenever you clear coat it as soon as the light hits it you're going to be able to see it so you need to go with the wood grain don't even get it angle and go like this because you're going to see them as long as you go with the wood grain nobody will ever see it and you're not putting a bunch of pressure you're just letting the weight of the pad touch the top of the poly and pretty much if you feel around you can feel what feels like little pimples it's just dust and stuff they got caught in the poly and this is just knocking that down making sure everything's level smooth in the same height [Music] [Music] now i know it looks rough now it looks cloudy from us wet sand in it but if you take your fingers and run across top it's just glass smooth and that's what we want no little pimples no debris in it no ups and no uh high and low levels no brush strokes all right again at this point you should be able to run your fingertips over it and it feel perfectly smooth and make sure whatever you're using to wipe it off this is cut up t-shirts you want something that's lint free you don't want to get a bunch of lint because the next coat of poly we put on there it'll catch all of it okay the next step is to take this and move it into the house for the next coat of polyurethane uh i want to try to limit exposure to dust and debris getting into it as much as possible it's getting really windy outside we're in a garage that has a lot of sawdust so this coat won't be as heavy so i don't have to worry about it dripping onto the carpet or running anything in the house so i'm going to move this inside and then we'll put another coat of polyeye mmm [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] and it didn't drip any on the carpet all right now we're just going to let that dry for a couple hours i'll come and check it and we'll see if it'll if it's going to need to be wet sanding coated again or if that's going to be good though see okay it's been another couple hours as you can see we still have a little bit of a texture to the top not the glass smooth the finish that we want so we're going to do a third coat with thicker stuff you can use in cooler weather usually you can get away with two coats with this being a thinner polyurethane usually i usually end up doing three like this so so so so [Music] so there you go guys this is my method of getting that glass smooth top i'm sure it's different than what you've seen in other videos because everything i do has pretty much been self-taught and i just kind of figure it out until it works and this is my method so i hope that helps you out guys remember to like subscribe and i think there's 34 other videos if you're interested in watching those go back and check those out thanks guys [Music] you

Channel: Dean Furniture Artist

Views: 271,093

Keywords: furniture, furniture flipping, painted furniture, furniture painting, diy, diy furniture, repurposed, refinished furniture, Furniture makeover, dresser, hutch

Id: dykNcN2nqrw

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 16 2021