Sanding color coat before clear, pigtails persist

[tiralie]

The materials change:
-The GF poly materials are working better for me but it's a matter of degree, not a cure. They get much, much harder, and get there quickly. They sand better and I can even wet sand them. But pigtails persist.

Good to hear.

Mirka sanders:
-Tried Mirka sanders. Believe they are better, but again it is a matter of degree, not a solution. Pigtails were tad less obvious - maybe - and seemed less likely to include the random non-uniform worse problematic pigtail. This is with the same abrasives, mainly abranet.

-Their finest (3/32 orbit) machine is air only and I don't like that. It's darn cute, light, and maneuverable, but so small that with the the air line and vacuum hose attached - at the bottom of the machine - you have to lift those to keep them from rubbing the work edge. And I'm doing some fairly large surfaces.

-Though it does pretty work it's more demanding that the festool. You must always start with the machine on the work or you'll make a mess when you contact the work. Every time. With the Festool I get away with it every time.

-With the Mirka you cannot finesse narrow work like the edges of doors. I can sand out finish on the edge of a 3/4" board with the Festool, don't try it with the Mirka. The pad edge on the Mirka is very hard and cuts thru the finish immediately with slightest misalignment. I'm generally using the hard pad on the Festool so that's my standard for comparison. (I use the hard pad to protect the edges of the work from wraparound sand-thru when working with the edge of pad out past the edge of the work - project is all flats, with hard, sharp, vulnerable, square edges.)

I have not tried Mirka sanders. Aside from the weight, the only other advantage I think they have over the Festool sanders is using DC when wet sanding.

-It may be the harder GF materials or the Mirka - I'm going to say it's both - but I have almost forgotten the dread of sand-thru when working with the pad edge over the edge of the work. I know it's partly the material because I'm back to mainly using Festool and still no edge worries.

Yes, I would be willing to bet it's the harder GF coatings. You may have read this post on the Target fourm re: using the CL crosslinker with EM 6600 and that Target is comming out with a new formulation for the EM6600 this summer.

So: Can't see the pigtails under several coats of clear. Good. Sand and polish and there they are again. Where the heck does this leave me? Went back and for some reason polished a lot more - and voila! The pigtails disappeared. They were in the top coat of clear. I had looked so carefully before polishing and not seen any sign of them that I was sure there were none.

Excellent! Looks like you found something that will work for you.

So now: I can get rid of pigtails. But only under with multiple unsanded coats of clear, and not  until the top is polished. Fine, but now that I have polished the whole piece I can see - in the right light, which is sky or diffuse, not flashlight inspection - what must be the imperfections in the unsanded layers. Like pimples, but you can't feel anything, so they're subsurface. And I find them objectionable. Where to go from here?

Experiment more, I guess.

Practice makes perfect. Seriously you can only get better both at laying down a coat without any defects or problems that need to be sanded out and understanding what recipe and process will work to get your desired results.

-I have applied three coats of GF poly color to my doors, roughly 2'x2' panels. They are sanding just like the "virgin" poplar so I may be getting away with applying the GF over the apparently failed Target materials, including all the filler.

Good to hear. Post some pictures when you are happy, I would love to see the finished project.