Clearcoating Bed wood

Sprint, the intercoat makes sanding easier, actually a little more pleasurable experience, but you can sand a regular clear between coats also. Just won't sand as nicely & will take longer dry time not to gum your paper. Personally for a first coat with clear, I'd thin it a little more with reducer. The first coat lightly scuffed will get rid of the worst of the raised hair & if you really want to see the grain, you may not really need to scuff or sand again.

Since you may want black natural look, try it a few ways on scrap or backside. Try burning with torch before & after stain, slightly sanding a little color off afterwards , etc & sample rattlecan clear enamel over em.

If you end up thinking after final clear that you want a little less woodgrain, you can light sand with you fingers instead of a blocking & recoat. However, if not going with much more coating & sanding, but not full blocking, you will start to pickup more variance as to what is looking really flat & what's still grainy.
 
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Sorry to bring up an old thread but I’m about to begin finishing the wood floor of my 51 Ford. A couple of questions regarding the West epoxy. First is how much should I order for the bed floor kit? It is a red oak. Second, after the first 2 coats are brushed in, the final coat is to be poured on to self level. On this step, are you going around the edges of each wood slat with tape to make a cast that is a certain thickness or just pour on the wood and let it flow off of the edges naturally? This is my first time working with this type of system so any advise is greatly appreciated.
 
dont brush it. what i do for the first epoxy coat is squeegee it on. i will pour a little then spread it out with a squeegee. i then scrape as much off as i can. that needs to set up for a couple few hrs so the first coat has set up so its thick by not cured. then ill do the same thing again. after coat 2 then i will pour a full 1/8" thick coat. you can put masking tape around the outside edge so it doesnt feather out on the edges. another way to go with this is to use a grain filler. i recently found a clear grain filler called aqua coat. stuff really works well and is faster and easier than using epoxy. its fine for exterior use also. rub a couple coats on like your waxing your car. sand the excess off the surface then you can topcoat with spi clearcoat.
 
Thanks! I ordered some of the aqua coat as that sounds much easier. What grit do you use after applying before clear and how many coats would you recommend of the clear?
 
I cant remember if i used 220 or 320. I would go with 220 and see how that works out. You just need to sand it so its not on the surface. Clear i would say 3-4 coats but with oak what needs to happen is you need to make sure by the time you do your final coat of clear that there are no bubbles or voids in the finish. Typically you wont get everything filled 100% and there will be some flaws after a couple coats of clear. You let that set up fo an hr then dab a drop of clear in all the little fisheye voids from the open grain. Next day , sand flat and final clear it
 
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