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Marc:Okay, so the reason I wanted to do
a live session in the
first place aside from like
I said earlier just
hanging out with everybody
and catching up with people
is that the fact that
there are a significant
number of new users
to the site and that kind
of was what caused our
crushing blow to our server that caused us
to have to move so now that
we're on this new server
hopefully everything will be okay,
but the point is there were
just a lot of new users.
I don't know what's in the water.
I don't know what's going around,
but there's a lot of people
who want to learn how to do woodworking so
I thought it would be cool to go back
and visit some of the basics
and some of the things that a lot of us
may already know, you know,
it might be okay to review these things,
but oil finishes and oil-based finishes
are one of the first
things you kind of confront
as a new woodworker as a potential finish
to use in your shop.
It's really durable, it's easy to apply,
it's got a very small learning curve
so it's a great option
and the problem with it is
there's a lot of confusion
out there in terms of
labelling, what's an oil,
what's an oil varnished blend,
what's just diluted varnish,
how do these things work,
what's more protective,
and I just wanted to review
that stuff with you guys.
So without further adieu
let's jump into it.
Okay, so the first thing
I wanted to talk about are oils
because essentially in
the world of oil finishes
there's like two extremes.
There's the simple,
extremely easy to apply,
but unfortunately not very
durable type of finish
and that's your oils your straight oils.
They go on really easy,
there's zero learning curve
because you literally just
flood it onto the surface,
let it soak in, wipe the
excess off and you're done,
but the problem with that finish is
that it's not very protective.
It doesn't block very much moisture
and it certainly doesn't do a darn thing
for blocking abrasion so
you drop something on it
you're going to dent it if the wood
is soft enough to be dented so.
Hold on. The laptop just went dark.
Why do you do that laptop? I hate you.
It was my energy settings.
So when we look at the
world of oil finishes
essentially you've got two things
in the world of woodworking.
One is Boiled linseed Oil
and the other is Tung Oil
which I don't happen to have right now.
I usually just buy these big containers of
the boiled linseed oil it's
just cheap and easy to find.
Both of these will be
found in varying quantities
and in different forms in
a lot of different finishes
that we confront, but just
know that these are really
the only two that you're going to find.
A boiled linseed oil like
I said it's easy to get.
Home Depot and Lowe's carry this stuff.
It's pretty cheap and for the most part
there's not a huge difference between
boiled linseed oil and tung oil.
There are very slight differences.
For instance, boiled linseed oil adds
a little bit more of an
amber color to the wood.
Tung oil is a little bit clearer.
It doesn't quite amber up
the wood quite as much,
but as a result if you're
doing something like
popping the grain and you want that color
to assist in that sort of popping reaction
boiled linseed oil is
probably your best bet
because it brings the most
color to the situation,
but tung oil is generally
considered to be the
better quality of the two oils.
In reality to you and me
it really doesn't make
a whole lot of difference.
You might wind up paying for money
for the tung oil, too, so
you're just better off,
in my opinion going
with boiled linseed oil.
Now to talk a little bit about terminology
boiled linseed oil well
in the past from what
I understand it used to be boiled
and it was something that
would help the oil cure.
By giving it that heat exposure it would
sort of polymerize it
and get it to a point
that when you lay it on the surface
it doesn't take days to dry.
Well nowadays they do that chemically.
They add driers to the oil
and that's what helps it cure quickly.
Now when you buy tung
oil you want to make sure
and see this is where things get crazy.
We'll talk about some of
the marketing crap later,
but tung oil is something
where, for instance
this says Tung Oil Finish.
Well that's pretty confusing because
the problem is it's not pure tung oil.
So when you are looking for pure tung oil
you absolutely must look
for that terminology.
It has to say pure tung
oil or else it's not so
in general though I think
Rockler is a good source.
They have some tung oil. I think -
well there's probably a number of places.
I always seem to get mine at Rockler
whenever I can get it on sale,
but like I said most of
the time boiled linseed oil
is the one that I prefer to use.
Like I said though generally I consider
it to be an inferior finish.
Something like a workbench where you want
a little bit of moisture protection
you can't stop a workbench
from being dented
no matter what you do to it.
So something like boiled linseed oil is
a great option because it's easy to fix,
easy to renew and you're just
fighting an uphill battle
if you coat your workbench with a film
because you're just going
to have to scrape it all off
or plane it all off and,
you know, retreat it later
so tools, you know, tool
handles, workbenches,
cutting boards, these are all places where
you use an oil that doesn't
build up to a thick film.
So it's kind of funny it's almost -
it doesn't seem to make sense.
The things that are going
to get beat up the most
are the things that you really are
just kind of giving in and saying
look, I know it's going to get beat up
so repairing and refreshing the surface
is more important to me so let me just use
the boiled linseed oil for the most part.
Look at me I'm all
organized with my notes.
So on the other side you have varnish.
So varnish is sort of the other extreme.
It's a full fledged film. It's, you know,
can look really ugly
if you put too much on
at least in my opinion,
but it's extremely protective.
It's gonna stop water or
anything from penetrating
the surface and it has that nice hard film
so you drop your keys on a table
it's not going to dent and it protects
the wood that lies underneath.
You know, before I go too much further
I guess we should answer the question.
What's the difference
between oil and varnish.
How do you go from oil to varnish?
Essentially, to grossly simplify it
if you take boiled linseed oil you add
a solid resin and you put in some thinner
and then you heat it all up
it actually changes to
varnish so to compromise now.
Varnish really protective
not the best looking it it's,
you know, put on really thick
and then oil on the other side
is what most of us would consider
really beautiful for the
wood, but not very protective.
So a good compromise is
an oil varnish blend.
You can make your own
or you can buy them in
sort of commercial varieties.
I've got a few examples here.
Most Danish oils that
you see on the market
are really an oil varnish blend
meaning they took something
that was pretty much
pure varnish, they added
oil, linseed oil, tung oil,
depends on the brand and the mixture
and they thin it out a little bit
so that it's easier to
apply to the surface
and typically the thinner is either
naptha or mineral spirits.
So if you make your own a lot of you guys
probably already know this formula
it's basically thirds it's 1/3 oil,
either boiled linseed oil
or tung oil, 1/3 varnish.
And in this case this is already -
I don't want to confuse things,
but Arm-R-Seal is already
diluted for wiping.
Its been diluted approximately 50%
of what you would normally get.
So let's say something like this
Minwax Fast-Drying Poly
this is full strength.
So you would say 1/3 oil,
1/3 full strength varnish
or polyurethane and then you would have -
my mineral spirits is in the closet,
but 1/3 mineral spirits and that gives you
a nice loose mixture that you can apply
to the surface, it absorbs deeply
and you get the best of both worlds.
It's not a super thick finish
that builds up to a heavy film.
I guess you could if you
keep applying multiple coats,
but it kind of gives
you that compromise of
a film finish protection
with the beauty of
a close to the wood finish.
So certainly something to consider when
you're looking for the ideal finish.
I think it also goes up in difficulty
in terms of application,
but oils are the easiest to apply.
You just flood it and wipe it off,
but as soon as you add some
varnish to that mixture
it tends to dry a little faster.
The finished application gets
a little bit more finicky,
you know, so you have to decide how far
you want to take it and
the varnish at the top,
well when you lay down varnish
it needs to be perfect, you know,
because otherwise you're gonna see
steaks and things like that
so you sort of work your way up in terms
of difficulty of application.
So I've got a few good examples here.
Like I said the WATCO Danish Oil,
the Minwax Tung Oil
Finish is a little bit -
pretty much an oil varnish blend.
Something like this the Arm-R-Seal
we talked about that a
couple of seconds ago.
Arm-R-Seal is not an oil varnish blend
despite the labelling.
Minwax Poly, of course, or anything like
Spar varnish and things like that
those are pretty much just pure varnishes.
Okay, so here's where the
marketing stuff comes in.
You will find a lot of finishes out there
labelled Tung Oil Finish.
The problem is tung oil finish really
means nothing more than
a finish that gives you
the look of something
that was perhaps treated
with tung oil so it's a
very subjective phrase.
A very subjective term and, you know,
could mean two different
things for the most part
in terms of what we buy in a store.
It could mean a true oil varnish blend
like one of these guys or it could mean
a diluted varnish what they would call
a wiping varnish.
Both of those technically
when applied to the surface
very lightly can give you
a tung oil like finish
and that's why you will see
the term tung oil finish
and that's why you'll also
see the word oil on here
because I don't know whether it's just -
I'm sure they've done studies
and they know what sells.
It's their product so they found that
if you put oil on the
label it sells better
than if you just call it polyurethane
like this one is called,
but the reality is this
is just a diluted varnish
and these two actually do contain oil.
So how do we see past
the marketing jargon?
I've been messing with this glove
and I don't really need it yet.
The idea is to first of all -
I want you to read the label obviously
you need to know what you're buying,
but then ignore it because
what you really need to do
is look at the back of the can.
You could also look at the MSDS.
It's the Material Safety Data Sheet
and that kind of tells you what
the ingredients are that go into it.
It can get a little bit technical in there
and some are more informative than others,
but the back of the can can give you some
very simple clues to tell
you what's in this mix
to let you know if it's
just diluted varnish
or it there's actually
some oil in that mixture
so one of the first things I look at is
the way that they tell you to apply it.
Okay, if the can says flood the surface
and let it soak for 10
minutes to a half-hour
to even, you know, an hour in some cases.
If it says a really long soaking period
then come back and wipe the finish off.
There's no way that that's pure varnish
or diluted varnish, sorry,
the diluted varnish would
dry and tack up in that time
there's no way you could apply it,
let it soak in for 20
minutes and come back
and wipe it with a rag it's
just not going to happen.
So you'll find that
these oil varnish blends
will always have a soak in period because
the oil in there means
that's it not going to dry.
It's gonna take a lot longer to cure
so you can get away with that.
The other thing is, of
course, the total drying time.
If the can says to recoat -
let me see what Arm-R-Seal
tells you what you can do.
If it says that you could recoat within
like an hour or 2 or even 6 hours
you're dealing with varnish, okay, because
varnish dries within that timeframe
generally a couple hours to, of course,
depending on your temperature, humidity
and things like that, but
the oil varnish blends
most times will have you
wait overnight to 24 hours
before doing anything else
to the surface because
again it just takes that
much longer to cure.
So application and drying time are 2 clues
that will always -
well I guess there may be some exceptions.
I should never say always,
but 99% of the time it will clue you in
onto exactly what's in
that can just by the way
that they tell you to apply it
and, of course, check the
MSDS if you really want
to get into the details of
exactly what's in that can.
Now if you're still confused
if you're not absolutely sure
you read some crap on the Internet
that tells you one thing, you're confused,
the one test that always seems to work
and it's, you know, very easy to do is
to get a non-porous surface -
I think I may have done
even an article on this
at one point.
Let's assume this is like plate glass.
I have a nice square block
of glass that I use for this.
Take a couple drops of your finish
drop it down on there.
It's got to be non-porous
so it just beads up.
Let it dry overnight.
If it dries and it's
wrinkly its got oil in it.
It's one of these it's
an oil varnish blend.
If it just dries to a complete solid layer
and there's really no
wrinkles at all to it
it's just diluted varnish
and that's kind of a fail
safe way to do a test.
For me personally you guys
have seen me talk about
Arm-R-Seal constantly I
mean it's something that I -
it's absolutely one of
my favorite finishes
and it really is nothing
more than a diluted varnish.
The reason I like it is I
think that the quality of
the resins that were used
to make this are better
than the quality of resins used
to make the Minwax stuff.
It may be just personal opinion,
but when I see a finish made with this
it reminds me more of a
finely lacquered surface
and when I see this stuff it basically
just to me looks like plastic.
Now another thing you may want to look
a little bit deeper into
when you are looking
at just the world of varnishes
you might want to pay attention to
what resins are inside that varnish.
The resin is really the deciding component
for how the finish is
going to act and look
depending on whether it's
phenolic or an alkyd resin
or in this case polyurethane resin
so then that's a good point.
A lot of people want to know what is
the difference between
polyurethane and varnish.
Well essentially varnish is sort of like
the umbrella term and polyurethane is just
one of a number of
different types of varnish
so polyurethane is just
a different type of resin
and basically in wood finishing
for the most part there are 3 resins.
There's polyurethane,
there are the class of alkyd resins
and then there's phenolic resins.
So I think and some people will probably
agree with me that the
alkyd and phenolic resins
generally look more
pleasant and less plastiky
than your urethane resins
so you'll find that a lot of the finishes,
for instance, I think Arm-R-Seal -
I can't remember which one it is,
but it's a mixture of both urethane
and phenolic resins if I'm not mistaken.
It might even say back here.
Nope, it's alkyd resin.
I get the two confused all the time,
but it's a mixture so that may be
what my eye is seeing is the difference
between pure poly and
basically a hybrid mixture
of poly and an alkyd resin.
All right, let's do some questions y'all.
I can see the chat from here so -
hit me with it y'all.
Well you know gun stocks you could find -
I know there are forums
out there dedicated
to how to treat finish
and handle gun stocks
because, you know, people like
to get picky about that stuff.
I know like Tried & True
oil and there are actually
gun stock oil companies out there
that specifically make gun stock finishes.
I know from what I've seen a lot look up
Tried & True oil, but
definitely do some research
and talk to the people
who know guns because
I don't know much about them so
I don't want to steer you the wrong way.
You might want to treat
gun stocks differently
than you would treat a piece of furniture.
Okay, Harfoot or Harfoo II, Harfoo T -
I'm gonna butcher
everybody's name tonight.
How can you make your
soft pine table hard?
You can cover it with hard maple
and that will make it hard.
If you're just looking to coat it with
a finish that's durable
that will, you know,
give it a little bit
more longevity, you know,
polyurethane is certainly
a great way to do it.
There are finishes out there that
I haven't had a chance
to really experiment with
that embed sort of like
an epoxy finish into
the wood fibres that will do just that
they sort of harden the surface
and it's great for outdoor furniture
because it really makes it impenetrable.
Now we talked about this
in the Guild in the past
and it's called the one
that I know of is CPES.
Look up on JamestownDistributors.com
they sell a product called CPES
and it's basically a 2-part epoxy
that you mix together.
It's very thin epoxy, you
let it soak into the wood
and after, you know, I
guess 12 hours, 24 hours,
sand it lightly and then hit it with
a few coats of varnish and polyurethane
whatever your choice is and it does
a number on the wood and makes
it really, really protected.
So now I know that's good
for outdoor furniture.
I haven't played with it
too much on interior stuff,
but if I had a really soft
wood table, for instance,
that I wanted to protect
that might not be a bad option.
Chris asked why did I dilute
the salad bowl finish
with mineral spirits?
Okay, so here's the theory behind that
and mind you this is
only my personal theory
and what I think makes the most sense
for my cutting boards.
Since it's all end-grain
the cutting board is
extremely thirsty. Right?
We're just talking abut the end-grain.
It really sucks in finish
so what I like to do is
take salad bowl finish
which is really just varnish, in fact,
General Finishes' Salad Bowl Finish
is really just one of their other products
in a different can, but they, you know,
well let's not get into that.
That's also an assumption on my part,
but let's call it an educated guess.
It's really just varnish
so what I like to do is
thin it out because a
thinner finish absorbs deeper
so what I like to do is thin it -
I forget what I said in the video,
but usually I thin it about 50% more than
I've already used in the can,
flood it onto the surface
and keep applying it.
Let it soak up as much as it wants to
and then when I flip the board over
and I see it's peeking out the other end
I put the board up on the side,
I wipe both sides clean with a dry rag
so there's no excess on the surface
and then at that point I
just let it dry overnight.
What I'm trying to do is
to get that thin varnish
to dry inside the grain.
Now if you use a full strength varnish
it's not gonna travel
as far through the pores
and through the grain.
Think of it like the analogy that I use is
the bunch of straws the thicker -
if you're pouring syrup
through a bunch of straws
it's probably not gonna
make it all the way through,
but it you thin that syrup
down quite a bit it will
so the idea is to get it, you know,
basically impregnate the wood,
for lack of a better term, with varnish.
So you do a couple of coats like that
and you really will wind
up completely sealing it
from the inside out whereas if you use
the full strength material it will soak in
a little bit, but for the most part
it's jut gonna start
building a film right away
and on a cutting board
we don't want a film
we want it just to be impervious to water
so that's my personal theory behind it.
The best finish for alder?
Well alder is although a
hardwood is relatively soft
so, you know, you're
probably gonna want to hit it
with a little bit of
shellac as a sealer coat
because it does have a tendency to blotch
and then whatever top coat you want.
Whether it's lacquer, shellac, you know,
one of these oil varnish
blends or straight varnish,
whatever you want it works fine.
Yes, polyurethane, Jayda, can be thinned
with mineral spirits.
You'll find that any of
these oil-based finishes
whether it's a pure
oil, boiled linseed oil,
an oil varnish blend or straight varnish
or just, you know, Minwax
Poly all of that stuff
can safely be diluted
with either paint thinner,
mineral spirits, naphtha, turpentine.
I mean it's all sort of compatible.
It just depends on what
you have in the shop
and me personally I just like to use
mineral spirits or naphtha because
I find them the least offensive to use.
Paint thinner just stinks
up the whole place,
but yes they're all safe to thin that way.
Epifanes go over stain?
Yeah, Epifanes goes great over stain.
Epifanes is nothing more than varnish.
A very, very good high
quality flexible varnish.
So thin it 50% and it
should go fine over a stain.
A waterproof finish that leaves
the wood looking natural?
The best you can do Lex is compromise
because to truly become waterproof -
well I don't even know
that that's possible.
Let's just say to become water resistant
you naturally need to
get closer and closer
to creating a film.
You have to stop water from penetrating
the wood fibres and the
only way to do that is
to block them from
penetrating the wood fibres
and just because of the way things look
when you do that you create a film
that just becomes less
and less natural looking
so it's always a balance.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
So its either got to be
completely water resistant,
completely protected or its got to be
on the other side where,
you know, it looks nicer.
So that's why these blends are really nice
because they serve as a good compromise.
I personally I like to
take just Arm-R-Seal.
I don't really mess with
the blends too much.
I think a nice coat of Arm-R-Seal
is absolutely gorgeous.
So I will use just a
wiping varnish maybe if
I'm looking for a nice
relatively natural finish
I'll rub in maybe 3 coats of this stuff
and then wipe off the excess
and it's pure varnish so you're gonna get
a decent amount of protection,
but it's a really thin varnish
and you won't get a
super, super thick build,
but again it's a compromise.
I have used lye on cherry Johnny Uma asks.
You know, you can do
that here's the problem.
It's an extremely, you know, basic,
it's caustic, it's not really something -
if you can avoid it I would say avoid it.
I mean it works.
You put a basic solution
like pure what is it
Red Devil that you can
get in a hardware store
or Drano you put a solution of that stuff
onto the wood especially
it's primarily cherry
it's gonna really, really
darken it in a hurry.
But you know what else does that? The sun.
UV exposure will darken
cherry not quite as quickly,
but it does get the job done so
I would much rather, you know,
put the stuff outside,
let it catch some rays
for a couple days and then hit it with
a pure chemical, you know, especially one
that's really caustic.
Just personally if I don't
have to deal with that stuff
I'd rather not.
Really the two finishes that I think
are going to be the least
offensive to your senses
as they cure are going to be water-based.
Pretty much anything that's waterborne
for the most part is going to be fine
and then lacquers.
Initially the lacquer is very offensive,
but I find after a couple days
there's hardly any detectable odor at all.
Shellac is also going to
be really good for that.
Basically if you're looking
to avoid curing smells
stay away from what we've
been talking about today.
Boiled linseed oil, these
mixes and the varnishes
will all retain odor for a
significant amount of time
and that's why we never really use them
on the inside of drawers
or the inside of cases
because they will stink and they will make
your clothing stink or anything
you put inside that container stink.
Wipe-on poly and wipe-on
varnish any difference?
Well this is like we said earlier.
Poly is a type of varnish so when
I say wipe-on varnish I
could be talking about
polyurethane that's just been diluted
or it could be some other type of varnish
that's been diluted, but
essentially for the most part
as far as average terminology is concerned
typically you use those interchangeably.
I'll say, you know,
wipe-on poly, you know,
when I'm really talking about something
that actually has something
other than poly in it,
but essentially for the most part
they're the same thing.
Well there's a lot of different ways
you could rub out a finish from
the sort of old fashioned abrasive method
using finer and finer
abrasives to, you know,
for instance one of the things that like
the Festool system the Rotex system
prides itself on is
the ability to buff out
a surface just using
their micro sanding pads.
You know, it's good stuff
it's just expensive.
You know, I don't do it that often.
The only time I ever have done that is
when I used to work at a refinishing shop
occasionally we would get a table
or a big conference table
where they just want
that super insane glass smooth finish
and like as high gloss as
you could possibly imagine
like piano finish gloss and in those cases
when you got a lot of space to cover
we needed machines so
we basically used power buffers.
We start the process
with a half-sheet sander
with 2,000 grit sandpaper.
This is after the final coat.
We're using lacquer by
the way. It's important.
Not every finish is good for rubbing out.
These urethanes and
varnishes and oil mixtures
not the greatest thing.
They're really, really durable because
they can take a hit so
they're sort of soft.
Things like shellac and lacquer
on the other hand are really -
well they're relatively brittle,
but if they'er brittle that means that
they can be buffed to
a really nice shine so
those are ideal for something like this.
So this table would be
completely lacquered,
final coat would be added
and then we go through
with a quarter-sheet sander.
We spray the entire
surface down with water
to just kind of lubricate it
and we're essentially buffing the surface
and scratching the surface evenly
all the way across with 2,000 grit.
What that does is level it.
If you have any orange peel on the surface
you cannot buff it out to a, you know,
absolute perfect shine.
You've got to completely level it
and have it glass smooth.
It may not be super clear at this point,
but it will be dead flat and smooth.
At that point you start
with your abrasives
so that's really what it
comes down to what you want.
Now what we used to do is use
like Meguiar's Automotive abrasives
is typically a 2 or 3
part system of abrasive,
you know, gel type material
you squeeze it out on the surface
you've got your buffing pad
and you're just being careful
not to burn through the lacquer.
You just do the best you can and move up
until finally your last step is like
the swirl remover and that
was the process that we used.
In the shop there's a lot more manual ways
you could do it.
I've got a couple of little containers.
I made little home-made shakers of,
you know, rottenstone and things like that
where you could put those on the surface
and just progress through.
Finer and finer abrasive powders.
There's quite a few
different ways you can do it.
Is there any difference in using
pore fillers with the different finishes?
Well pore fillers come
in different varities
just like finishes do.
You've got your oil-based pore fillers.
You can make your own pore filler
by taking some of this oil varnish blend
and sanding it into the surface
that will fill the pores
and you can use water-based, for instance,
it's all the way over there
Timbermate Wood Filler
is not only great for,
you know, filling little cracks and voids
and things like that like
a standard, you know,
wood putty would be, but
you can dilute it in water
and make an incredibly
good wood filler out of it
or pore filler out of it
and you can color match it
and make it whatever color you want,
spread it over the surface, sand it down,
but it is water-based and it
will reactivate with water
so you have to be careful what you then
add on top of that so
if I was using something
that was water-based I
would probably coat it
with some shellac to seal that stuff in
and then hit it with whatever
top coat I wanted to.
If you're using an oil-based top coat
you could probably avoid the shellac layer
if you wanted to because
the oil is not going
to pick up the water-based filler.
Shellac is made of shellac.
It's a lac bug excretion that's collected.
And this is more or less
a purified version of it.
You know what -
It comes in these little flakes.
They're very, very brittle
and it dissolves in alcohol and that's it.
It's about the simplest
most natural purest
finish you can use.
It's typically on a
time-released medication
if part of the pill is
coated with, you know,
a shellac barrier the shellac
doesn't really dissolve
in the acid of your
stomach so when it first
hits your stomach part of
the pill can dissolve then.
The other part doesn't dissolve until
your "parts" your plumbing
becomes more basic
and then that dissolves
the second part of the pill
and that's for the most part
how the time-released stuff works.
That's tricky and you know what?
There's a good thing that I don't know.
Every situation is a little bit different.
That would be the major,
major drawback to a varnish finish.
We talked about it being more protective.
Well it's got to be because
if it doesn't protect
the finish or the wood
and you get something,
you know, that really penetrates it
it's a very difficult thing to repair.
The way you think of varnish
and when you're comparing
it to like shellac,
lacquer, even just one
of these oil finishes
varnish is the hardest to repair
and the reason is think
of varnish more like
layers of plastic wrap, okay, you put
one layer down let it dry,
the next layer comes down, you let it dry.
Those layers do not really intermingle.
I mean they lock down
together, they adhere,
but they don't become one.
When you spray shellac
or lacquer every coat
that you spray melts
into the coat before it
so when it's all said and done is one
thick layer of lacquer or
one thick layer of shellac.
It's called burn-in.
You don't have that with
varnish unfortunately
so if you, let's say you get a scratch
and you want to just repair that scratch
if you start sanding and you burn from
the top most layer into the next layer
what that does is creates what they call
like witness lines wherever you burn-in
you'll see that ridge of the varnish
where you burn-in from
one layer to another.
So it becomes very, very tricky.
The best you can really hope for is that
if you have surface scratches is that
you can sand that top, you know, layer
abrade that top layer just enough that
it gets those scratches
out and now your top layer
is super, super thin
and then you can kind of
just recoat it with a
fresh coat of varnish,
but if you've got a deep
wound in a varnish surface
I don't think there -
at least that I know of there's really
not a great fix for that.
Now if you have one of these oil finishes
if you have shellac,
lacquer you could sand
that one particular spot,
get it nice and smooth,
get the scratch out or whatever it is,
or if it's water damage
get that water damage out
and then just recoat it and the material
just blends right into the old stuff.
See here's the thing with finishes guys.
You can use anything you want.
If you're doing, you
know, there are certain
woods that respond better
to certain colors let's say,
but really when it comes to a top coat
it's kind of, you know, half function
and half preference.
If it's something that's
gonna be used a lot
well then you need to protect it enough
like a dining room table
or something, you know,
it's pretty important that you get a nice
durable finish on there,
but you can still put a lacquer on there
if you want to if you
like the way lacquer looks
and you don't like polyurethane,
but if you want more protection,
let's say, you know, you got a family of 5
and you got kids beating up on that thing
every morning you're probably gonna want
a polyurethane or some kind
of varnish on that table
and you'll be willing to
sacrifice looks a little bit
for the sake of protection.
So something like curly cherry
I would probably do
something to pop the grain
a little bit maybe hit it
with a little bit of dye
and then sand it back
to get all the dye off
the top surface where it just soaks in.
"Pop Goes the Maple"
is a video that I did a
while back. Look that up,
and that kind of describes that process
and then I would probably if it's
like a surface that's gonna get used a lot
I probably would default to Arm-R-Seal.
If you have the ability to spray
you could certainly look into some of
the other options like lacquers and like
a pre-catalyzed lacquer is gonna be
a pretty strong durable surface that's
gonna look gorgeous.
It's almost like, you
know, for me when someone
asks what finish should I apply
it's kind of like asking
what car should I drive.
You know, all finishes
are going to do something.
They'll get you from point A to point B,
but there's a lot of questions that
I can't answer between those points
that deal with your personal preferences
and also what you have
the ability to apply.
I did a video on that called
"Desert Outdoor Finish"
Just look that up on the site
and the recommended finish
that I used for that.
I wanted something that was repairable
to some extent and I knew it would require
a little bit of, you know, refreshing
every couple of years just by nature.
Our heat here is just insane in Arizona so
what I did was I took
a really high quality
outdoor varnish this is Epifanes.
I diluted it a little
bit with mineral spirits
so it's a little bit
more of a wipe-on formula
and also added some
boiled linseed oil to it.
Essentially creating an outdoor version
of one of these the Danish oil
or this tung oil finish from Minwax.
It's an oil varnish blend
and putting that on the door
was great. It worked really, really well.
So every couple of years I just go back,
sand it lightly and
then I add a fresh coat
of this mixture and it works really well.
What I find though is after
a while those pores really -
they get sealed up and the more sealed
those pores are the less likely it is
to cure when you've got the oil in there
because this oil really
requires a porous surface
for it to cure properly
so I tend to go a lot
stronger on the varnish
and just give it a nice light coat
of the wiping varnish and this is now like
4 years into it, 3 years.
Do I put the same number
of coats on all surfaces?
That's a good question. No.
I make sure that all surfaces are sealed.
There's a point when the
surface is truly sealed.
It's not going to absorb anymore finish
or any liquid for that matter
especially when we're
talking about varnishes.
At that point on certain surfaces,
maybe the inside of a
cabinet, the bottom of a table
I'm not too concerned about
the final maybe 2 coats
or something like that as long as
the first 2 or 3 coats go on
it's nice and sealed up I'm really happy.
The top gets the full treatment.
So yeah I mean it's not a bad idea,
but I don't think it's
completely necessary
to go through the entire finish regimen
from coat 1 to coat 5 on
the underside of a surface.
(cheerful music)
