I'm having difficulties doing a good job with the wipe-on technique. Using a rag made of a 6" square of old T-shirt, folded 3 times into a 1-1/2"x3" strip, and wiping on a 6" board, I find it hard to avoid having some "ridges" where the edge of the pad apparently let a thicker coat develop. Either because of a snowplow effect, pushing finish from middle to edges, or because the pressure drops a lot at the edges. In other words, there'll be a nice thin coat in the middle of the pad, but thick for 1/4" at the edges. Given a 6" wide board, and only about 2" of pad pressed firmly to the board at any one time, I end up with a couple ridges. Not over the whole board, just a couple spots a foot or so long. Perhaps near where I started a fresh batch of finish on the pad.
The stuff dries fast enough that I don't want to keep going over it to smooth it, as every pass seems to expose more to the air and speed the drying. But I have to run a complete final pass over the entire 6' board to eliminate visible lap marks in the middle where the pad was freshly replenished.
So, I'm wondering about technique here. Perhaps I need to beef up my pad, wrapping it around a 6" long stick so I can do the entire board width in one pass? Perhaps I need to add something to the Resisthane to slow down the drying, so I can do one or two final full-length passes to smooth it? Both?
The stuff dries fast enough that I don't want to keep going over it to smooth it, as every pass seems to expose more to the air and speed the drying. But I have to run a complete final pass over the entire 6' board to eliminate visible lap marks in the middle where the pad was freshly replenished.
So, I'm wondering about technique here. Perhaps I need to beef up my pad, wrapping it around a 6" long stick so I can do the entire board width in one pass? Perhaps I need to add something to the Resisthane to slow down the drying, so I can do one or two final full-length passes to smooth it? Both?

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