# HELP-- Polyurethane crystalizing white



## ckwoodworking (Feb 4, 2016)

Does anyone have an answer for this??

I applied two coats of Minwax natural wood stain to my table top.. waited about 72 hours then applied the Minwax Wipe on Poly (with a green cotton tshirt).. certain spots turned crystalized white that I could scratch off with my finger nail. I scraped it all off then sanded and reapplied a DIFFERENT brand new can of Poly (same brand) and the SAME THING HAPPENED.. its driving me insane-it takes so long to scrape off..

Does anyone have a quick solution or know why this is happening? I really hope I can apply something to it to fix it instead of scraping it all off again. PLEASE HELP!!


----------



## bobkas (May 23, 2010)

Have never seen it before but the only thing I can think of would be some contamination on the piece. I believe the only solution is what you do not want to do take it off, clean and reapply. 
Bob


----------



## conifur (Apr 1, 2015)

I use both and never experienced that, what species of wood is it?


----------



## ckwoodworking (Feb 4, 2016)

Could the temperature of a room cause this to happen??

I do it in my garage which is about 8-12 degree C.

The wood is cedar from Home Depot and the tiger wood is from the local timber store (not exactly sure the species)


----------



## conifur (Apr 1, 2015)

In my experience with your finishes low temp just slows down drying time, yes I know, a winter shop 50-60*F
as I said never experienced it, but just use hard woods, I think it is something in the wood. With that said if it was Shellac then it gets cloudy in high humidity situations. But you are saying more like cystals, I think some thing is bleeding out of the wood IMO.


----------



## ckwoodworking (Feb 4, 2016)

conifur-

The odd thing is, is that it is crystalizing on both the tigerwood and cedar…

If you were to finish a kitchen table.. what would you do.. im going to strip the top


----------



## KYSean (Jul 21, 2008)

Either old poly or moisture in the wood somehow.


----------



## Mahdeew (Jul 24, 2013)

I am thinking it is the oil in cedar. The aromatic ones do that naturally. You may have to heat up the cedar and let it bleed most of the oil before you proceed. If you are using water base poly, switch to oil base one for this project.


----------



## KYSean (Jul 21, 2008)

remove all finsih. Rub the wood down good with Acetone and put one coat of finish on right after cleaning. Let it dry 24 hours. If the white is gone, your good to apply more coats of finish.


----------



## conifur (Apr 1, 2015)

Tiger wood and if aromatic cedar, which I have not worked with, have allot of oil in them. From I have read in my Finishing books, as previously posted here, I would wipe them down with Naphtha or Acetone at least once, then a wash coat of 1 1/2 lb cut of Shellac then top coat of your choice. Try it on a sample piece first and see what the result is.


----------



## WoodNSawdust (Mar 7, 2015)

+1 to what conifer said.

Shellac is a great sealer of wood and between different types of finish. If you want to keep the colors "as is" you will want to consider a blonde or super blonde color of shellac.


----------



## ckwoodworking (Feb 4, 2016)

Thanks for the help everyone.. I got creative last night and got some wax paper along with an iron and ironed over the areas of white crystals.. They disappeared and have not come back.. Not sure if this is a new thing I figured out… but either way.. its worked! Hopefully this solution can help others!


----------

