We’re back!

It’s probably a bit late but I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year and hope that you had a good Christmas. We had a much needed break and we’re back in the thick of it already.

We’ve been sending out these newsletters for over six months now – where did that time go? – and it’s getting hard to avoid repeating questions! With this in mind, listening to feedback from readers about information overload, and to keep the newsletters readable, we’ve decided to reduce the number of questions each week from five to three. We hope you won’t mind – and you know where I am if you do!!

The first question we have this year was from an overseas customer who had knocked over his bottle of Friction Polish (we always say ‘put the lid on’!) and wanted to know what solvent to use to clean it up. Methylated Spirit is your friend on this one, it will still be a gloopy mess but it’ll soften the polish enough to allow it to be scraped up.

We were also asked about using Cellulose Sanding Sealer on marquetry, and we know of no reason why not although care needs to be taken in case the solvent causes the dyes in coloured woods to run – something for any segmenters out there to bear in mind too.

Another emailer asked about the fade resistance of our Spirit Stains and if we have any data to qualify this claim. The pigments/dyestuffs that we use to make the colours are all tested on the Blue Wool Scale  and they score in the top two ratings so they are extremely fade resistant. I have stained pieces given to me twenty years ago which show no sign of colour change.

And under the new regime that’s it for this week! I’m sure we’ll both get used to it very quickly.
As always, your comments and questions are always welcome so don’t be backward in coming forward.

All the best

Terry