WEEK COMMENCING 2 APRIL 2023

Hi

I never know when to say Happy Easter, so I’ll just say ‘Happy Easter Weekend’! Will you be finding time to get out into your workshop? Or do you have other plans? Whatever you get up to, I hope you have a good one, with or without chocolate eggs!

I genuinely enjoy the slightly ‘off the wall’ questions we get, it stretches our knowledge of our products, and makes us think of different uses for them. Sometimes the question takes the form of telling us about a new use for one of them.
This definitely fits into the first category, though. We were contacted by a regular friend and customer asking for suggestions to refurbish some old Bakelite light switches, part of a boat renovation. Whilst a little outside our knowledge of our products, it wasn’t a huge leap from polishing acrylic and resin, to polishing Bakelite. Like the acrylic, I didn’t think it was a case of applying a polish, more to clean them to reveal the original shine. I suggested our Burnishing Cream for this – abrasive enough to cut through years of grime yet gentle enough not to damage the surface. And perhaps a buff with the C Wheel in our Buffing Kit, used with Carnauba Wax Stick, starting at a slow speed, just in case.

I was delighted to hear that it had all worked; the Burnishing Cream did the job well, although it took a few goes. The use of the Buffing Wheel brought them the switch up brilliantly.
I was flattered by the closing comment; Chestnut Products saves the day yet again. Thank you.

This next question is mostly about another use for our products; an email came in from someone regarding a pen they had made. It was based on a standard pen kit, and copper pipe had been added to increase its diameter. A casting resin was used to complete the blanks. All was going well until it came to finishing it, as the copper was being drawn to the surface of the resin. Undeterred, our intrepid turner continued through the grits to get a smooth finish, even though some copper contamination was still coming to the surface of the resin. Finally, the pen was finished with Cut’n’Polish which cleaned it up nicely, curing the problem.
I don’t know enough about metals to understand why this was happening, but I saw something sort of similar many years ago. A cellulose based lacquer had been used over an incompatible sealer; it had stuck, but the surface kept getting a white dust on it, which returned even after being cleaned away. This was a stearate bloom, coming through from the sealer. The simple solution was to apply a wax over the surface, which sealed the dust in (the customer didn’t want to remove the coatings and re-do the job). I wonder if there was something similar going on here?
The final comment on this one was that the Cut’n’Polish saved the project!

Finally, for this week…you’ll recall recently that I was stressing the importance of the correct PPE when turning. We had a question this week about which masks we recommend for spraying our aerosol lacquers.
We looked into it, and called in a favour from a friend who is more in the know about such things. They recommended a combination filter, type AXP3. Type AX for the solvents as they have a boiling point lower than 65°C, and P3 for maximum safety from the particulates. Could we make this information more readily available? It would be good to do so, but we’re not experts when it comes to PPE and filters, and I’d worry that information we supply could become out of date and erroneous. We supply the required data via our Safety Data Sheets, from which we’d like to think the experts could be asked to make a recommendation.

I’ve got another busy week coming up; on Wednesday I’ll be heading up to the Erewash Valley Woodturners Association for a demo, then continuing on to Sheffield Woodturning Club for a demo on Thursday. As always, come and say hello if you’re there!
If you can’t make it, I’ll be back here on Friday…

Have a good Easter

Terry