Like the title says, I'm finishing a dining set in Oak that has been completely bleached with two-part bleach. First coat of CV was still a bit tacky the next day, but I did a test on one of the chair seats, scuffing and putting on a new coat. Dried nice and hard like normal, but with a few surface bubbles, like the previous coat was still offgassing? I scuffed everything and let it sit for a day. The next day, I shot a new coat on everything, scuffed the test seat and put a thin final coat on it. I let this all sit for two days.

Today, the test seat was dry and hard and perfect looking. The table surface is nice and dry, looks great. The remaining seats were still slightly tacky, so I scuffed them and finished out like I had the test seat. The chair frames themselves are dry... but maybe not hard yet?

Anyway, the thin final coat I put on all the seats slightly wrinkled and lifted the previous coat. Never seen this with CV, especially not after it sat for a couple of days.

I'm starting to wonder if I didn't massively screw up by not neutralizing the bleach. It's the only thing I can think of, but I don't understand why certain parts of this set are drying and curing properly while others aren't.

I am using Gemini's GemVar CV. I thin it 10%-20%, and I add retarder. Thanks.

Matthew,

- What type of bleach did you use?
- How many coats?
- If multiple, what was the elapsed time between coats?
- Did you use heat to accelerate the drying cycle ?

Hey there.

It is self-made two-part wood bleach. A dilution of lye and 27% (I think) peroxide.

I did two coats on the chairs, one coat on the table. Each coat dried at least a day, I think total dry time was like four days.

I didn't use any direct heat, as in a gun or anything, but the pieces sat underneath my shop's heater at 70 degrees for this period of time.

Today, the seats that were wrinkling were almost perfectly smooth... only a couple of them showed any signs of lifting the previous coat. Everything else is nice and dry and hard.

Matthew,

I am assuming you used lye flake, saturating until flake would no loner dissolve into the ( hot? ) water. And that is probably where your problem arose. You left enough dry time - though also having a moving air flow along with the heat would encourage a thorough drying. But after two coats neutralizing with a healthy dose of white vinegar would be the standard rule of thumb. Hopefully, you won't have issues down the road. Good luck!

You didn't do anything to neutralize the lye? No water or white vinegar wash?

https://woodworkly.com/how-to-neutralize-red-tones-in-wood/