The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Finishing Oak Bed

After applying the first coat of clear satin finish to my oak bed wood I have decided I would prefer a gloss finish. Can I apply coats of gloss over the satin. I am using Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane.
Thanks

I would say yes. I just did it with satin over gloss lacquer yesterday. I would think urethane gloss over satin would work as well. Try it on a scrape piece first. It is a finishing technique that is supposed to make the finish look like it is deeper or thicker.

Lightly sand that first coat with 220 sand paper. Did you stain the oak? If you did, be careful not to sand into the stain. You can sand most of the satin off if you didn't stain the wood. You should sand between coats of Spar anyway. This will get rid of bubbles and crap that stick to the urethane. I just finished putting 7 coats of Helmsman on last week. Sanded between every coat.

I have a question about sanding between coats: How hard to sand? Make it smooth or just to remove stuff that stuck? Sorry to hyjack but it seemed to be a quick question to ask.

You have to rough the surface to get the next coat to stick better. It will look dull and small sanding marks in the surface. I sand the entire board, both sides and edges. The next coat will cover these as long as you stay with 220 grit for sanding.

Thanks. Dumb question but do you sand with 220 sandpaper or 000 steelwool? A local wood person told me to use the steel wool but I've never refinished anything wood before.

220 sandpaper. I have used steelwool 0000 to take down a gloss coat to semi-gloss. But you are trying to get out rough spots, impurities and get a flat level surface. Sandpaper is better, plus, some wood reacts to steelwool fibers. To be safe use sandpaper. Just get the surface level and don't sand thru to the stain if you are using any. You will load the paper up pretty fast with white residue from the urethane. Change paper often.

Thanks.