WEEK COMMENCING 17 SEPTEMBER 2017
Your weekly Q&A Session with Chestnut Products
Hello again, welcome back to another information overload from Chestnut Products.
We’ve had some nice comments about our newsletter recently and acting on one of them we’re trying to change the format just a little…
At the recent show at Yandles someone asked how long to leave the Acrylic Gloss Lacquer to cure before buffing.
Whereas the Melamine Gloss Lacquer (or just the Melamine Lacquer in the brushing form) cures after it air dries, our Acrylic Gloss Lacquer (and the satin version too) are purely air drying, after an hour they are fully dry and as tough as they are going to get. It’s usually quicker than that but depending on what you’re going to do with it a little more time never hurts!
This one is hot off the press (well, hot off the phone!). A call just now asked about re-finishing an antique sideboard which had been stripped down and repaired. The caller didn’t want a high gloss finish and had Shellac Sanding Sealer to hand but wanted something to go over the top of this, so we suggested Microcrystalline Wax. It’ll stand up to the occasional abuse that the sideboard might – but really shouldn’t – get, and with wax the more you buff the brighter the finish so our suggestion was to stop when the desired sheen level was achieved.
This is as much a warning as a question; a caller used Steel Wool to cut back an open grained timber before applying Acrylic Lacquer, and the bits left behind by the Steel Wool remained in the grain and went rusty, spoiling the overall appearance of the piece. Not such a problem when using a solvent based sealer, but other ways to avoid this would be to use NyWeb and be meticulous with a Tack Cloth after sanding to make sure the surface is totally clean
Getting an even colour when using stain can be difficult, even more so when the timber is patchy. How can this be made easier we were asked recently. The trick is to partially seal the wood with a diluted sanding sealer (yes, there are times when you should do this!). The more porous areas will absorb the sealer and won’t then take up so much stain, but the less porous areas will be largely unaffected by the sealer, leading to a more uniform porosity.
Staying with Spirit Stain, were you here last week when we were talking about removing it? Another question was how far does it penetrate? This will vary depending on the timber of course, but normally about 0.5mm – not very far, but then it doesn’t need to. It will go deeper if you put the product in a ‘stain bath’, we’ve had reports of it going about 4mm in three weeks.
-oOo-
And another happy ending, I can’t remember if we told you about the lady who had had a mantelpiece fitted finished with Friction Polish and wanted to buy some more to use on her table.
We advised against this and suggested Hard Wax Oil instead and she rang us to say that she’d bought some and used it and was very happy with the finish indeed. No pictures I’m afraid but it was obvious from her voice that it had done the job!
We’ll leave it there for this week and like clockwork there’ll be another set of ramblings along next week.
See you in seven
Terry
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