Hi

I’m very short of news again this week, we just carry on doing what we do and everyone seems happy with that. I mentioned our YouTube videos last week and I know many of you popped over to look at our channel, if only to put a face to the Newsletter! Hope you weren’t too scared!
I’ll just get straight on with the questions…

I know that many of the Chestnuteers are members of woodturning clubs (and if you’re not, I highly recommend joining one!). We were asked to remind one of the many clubs that we deal with about the discount structure available to them. We’ve been dealing with clubs around the country for many, many years now and the members find it very useful to be able to get our finishes at meetings.
The deal is really simple; club shops get 20% off our RRP plus free delivery on qualifying orders. The club can then offer their members a discount and raise funds for the club at the same time if they wish. No forms to fill out, no onerous terms and conditions, just let us know what you want and we’ll do the rest.

A more technical question, would using Cellulose Sanding Sealer on very wet wood help to make it easier to sand? I knew that it wouldn’t, but I wasn’t sure of the best solution so I asked the Conkerers – the collective name for the members of our Facebook group, called Conkers. Almost universally the answer came back to work with the wetness of the timber and wet sand it, using just water or something like Lemon Oil. Just make sure that all electrics and the lathe bed etc are safely covered first.

And finally for this week…I’ve mentioned in the past about the ambient temperature affecting finishes both in their final appearance and also with how they apply. One emailer this week told us that their workshop has no heating and that the Microcrystalline Wax is very hard, and a little difficult to use. Would standing it in a hot water bath help? Not really I’m afraid, all this would do would be to melt the wax in contact with the edge of the tin. The centre would take a long time to feel the benefit of the heat, so it wouldn’t achieve much. Wax also tends to go from ‘semi-solid’ to liquid very suddenly, so catching it at the right consistency, if you were to persevere with the idea, would be very difficult.
The best advice is to take things like the waxes, acrylics and aerosols indoors in the colder months so that they work when needed.

And once again we come to the end of a Newsletter, but fear not we’ll be back again next week with more information and tips.
As always, thanks for the feedback, it’s always appreciated. Next week we’ll be starting the run-up to the Midlands Woodworking Show, being held in Newark next month. It’s the first major show of the calendar, and we’ll be telling you more about it soon.

Meanwhile, have a good week!

Terry