Hi

If all has gone to plan, when this arrives in your inbox I’ll be asleep in a Travelodge, halfway to Heywood, the venue for our Woodturning Weekender which starts tomorrow. More realistically, I’ll be lying awake wondering what I’ve forgotten to do! Whatever YOU do, don’t forget to come and join us if you’ve got tickets. We’re looking forward to seeing you!
And you might recall, last week we put out a call for a tour guide to show some American visitors around the area. We had a couple of replies, thank you, and special thanks to Nathan who will be driving them around today. I hope you all have a great day, I look forward to hearing about it.

A question came in this week about Hard Wax Oil. It had been used to good effect on some internal doors, would it also be suitable to use on a garden bench refurbishment?
The answer here depends on where the bench will be, and how much exposure it will get. In general, though, I’d advise against it. Finishing Oil would be a better choice, as it contains UV filters. This helps protect the coating against the harmful rays of the sun, which can cause it to crack and delaminate. As a by-product of this, it also protects the colour of the timber below, and can slow down any natural changes. Hard Wax Oil is designed as an interior finish, and doesn’t contain these filters. Whilst it is still very hard-wearing, and will withstand a lot, Finishing Oil should last that bit longer.

One that comes up regularly, and has, I’m sure, been covered previously is about using our Accelerator for Superglues. It’s useful information, though, and still bears repeating. Sometimes, using the accelerator will turn the glue white. How can this be avoided? It’s quite simple really – use less of it! Very little of the accelerator is required to do its job, and a minimal amount is needed to dry the glue. A very short spray is all that is needed.
Sometimes it’s impossible to reduce the amount of spray – especially if the item is very small. Our good friend Dan Rees at Zebrano Woodcraft came up with an ingenious solution for this, which he uses on the wooden rings he makes. Dan sprays a mist of accelerator into the air, and passes the ring through it. Enough of the accelerator is in contact with the glue to do the job, without saturating it and turning it white.

An odd question to finish with, this week. Someone was a little concerned about the Terms and Conditions on our website; there’s a little joke in there, and strangely it made them worry if it was safe to use their credit card to make payment. Our site has the padlock symbol and starts ‘https’ (the ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’ and is the important part). This all means that the connection between the user’s browser and the website server, is encrypted. This prevents others from being able to intercept or read any communication (such as card numbers) between them. You should always check that the padlock and ‘s’ are on any site where you enter personal details.
To answer the original question here, though; rest assured, we take what we do (including your safety) very seriously. We just refuse to take ourselves as seriously!

Well, I hope you found those interesting, I’m off to set up the Weekender. Do come and say hello if you’re coming along; let’s have some fun!
If you can’t make it, don’t worry, I’ll be back here next week as usual.

All the best

Terry