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AccomplishedEnergy24 t1_j9imj8c wrote

Using veneer for countertops is .. living dangerously already.

Sanding more is dangerous. This is 1/8th veneer, which stands some chance, but ...

Ikea also claims to use a UV cured finish on these. You will never match that, either in toughness, or in exact coloration, with a random mineral oil. If you want consistent coloring, you will have to resand the entire thing.

Depending on veneer thickness, and also what's under it, it's also unfortunately possible for the oil to soak all the way through the veneer and puddle a bit. Sort of like stains under your carpet.

Honestly, i'm not sure i'd try to fix this unless you are willing to redo it entirely.

A. It's very easy to sand through veneer if you aren't experienced

B. You will have to have strip the entire UV lacquer off (which will be very difficult) to get the color consistent with any form of oil (since it will need to soak into pores at an identical rate everywhere). This is going to be hard without sanding through the veneer, depending on the coating. Some UV coatings i have had to strip are tough enough that anything less than 120 grit takes forever. But once you are through at that grit, if you hit it for one more extra second you will destroy the countertop by sanding through the veneer.

C. You are going to take off a much more protective finish and use a much less one, which, on veneer, is going to dramatically shorten the usable lifetime.

This is pretty risky. I would also say - if you do go for it and accidentally ruin it, you can get wide plank red oak countertops (non-veneer) for reasonable prices if you look around. These will last basically forever and you won't have to worry about (you can steam out dents, etc).

You can also just get them in custom lengths/widths/etc made for you, so you have no seams in the straight part.

Example: https://hardwood-lumber.com/red-oak-wide-plank-butcher-block-countertop/

(this was the first one that popped up, there were a lot)

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eveningtrain t1_j9ipets wrote

This post has the answer. The finish that you used is causing the color difference. Mineral oil, like any oil finish, soaks into the grain of the wood. It makes it look wet, deep, and sometimes almost translucent. Think about how a drop of oil looks on a piece of paper, and then imagine that soaking in through all the wood fibers. Mineral oil is colorless and doesn’t amber like linseed oil does, but the depth it brings makes the wood dark.

The finish IKEA used is probably a film finish made of some kind of plastic. This post mentions a UV cured finish. It’s likely on the surface of the wood only; these finishes can be crystal clear, adding no color, which is great when wanting a cooler-hued tone to natural wood or to preserve the bright, light color of light colored woods. They might not soak in or make the wood look wet. This accounts for the color difference.

The good thing about mineral oil is that it doesn’t cure. It’s also not super resistant to water. So with use and regular cleaning, it will eventually wear or wash away, and the countertop will look lighter and even dried out. The way my cutting boards and wooden spoons get when they need oiling! Once the countertop is all dry and thirsty looking again, OP can choose a more suitably matched finished than oil was.

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AccomplishedEnergy24 t1_j9jn0et wrote

This is just about 100% right, but just to say two things:

Even with a colorless oil, or the right color (you could take colorless oil and use tints if you had to, to get it the right color) the sheen will likely be wrong, and you will still notice because it will still catch your eye.

It is basically impossible to permanently change the sheen of a non-film forming finish, because the sheen change is done with flatteners (usually silica dust or something) that sit on top of the cured finish[1], and in a non-film forming finish, it will just wipe away ;)

Also

The film finishes still wet (they have to), just not as deep. This is why some of them are not great at bonding, like epoxies - they have trouble wetting the surface, and thus, you only get a mechanical bond instead of a chemical one.

How much they wet can still be noticeable on thinner veneers, depending on the finish/backing.

Normally i'd say 1/8th veneer like this is would be fine, but red oak is very porous, and so it's harder to say.

[1] The final sheen is always determined by what is on top

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Throwaway021614 t1_j9kejet wrote

I’ll be that guy: and it’s barely noticeable

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donkeyrocket t1_j9kib7d wrote

I agree. As a recent first-time homeowner, this is going to be one of those things that bothers OP far more than anyone else even if they notice it. I have a growing list of those "personal nuisance" projects.

Fussing with this anymore is going to lead them down the path of needing to redo the whole thing as it'll be very noticeable.

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AccomplishedEnergy24 t1_j9kpqgy wrote

100%. It's like any woodworking i do - I know where all the mistakes are, and they bug me, but nobody else can ever see them. As someone once said, as you become better, you don't always make less mistakes, you just get better at hiding them.

I would put something on top of it and never worry about it. Like maybe a silicone mat or something. If you use a coffee maker or anything you should put something like that under it anyway to control spills.

There are people who want super-clear countertops 100% of the time who this would bother. I'm not one of them ;)

If i really couldn't deal with it, i'd save up the thousand bucks to get a solid red-oak plank countertop (This looks to be about 8-10 lineal feet of countertop, but maybe there's more elsewhere), and do that.

When you account for all the work and cost that would go into refinishing what's there, the price difference is not likely to be huge.

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owlpellet t1_j9l8xr3 wrote

Seems very likely IKEA is selling the absolute minimum thickness to soak up their hardening treatment. Which means sanding it all out is going to be a bad time.

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