WEEK COMMENCING 26 JANUARY 2025

Hi Everyone, Nathanael here!

I’m halfway through my 4th month here at Chestnut, so I thought I’d give you a bit of an update as to what I’ve been up to!
We’ve been very busy over the last few weeks with our international orders as everyone is topping up their stock after Christmas.  I’ve mostly been out in the warehouse over the last few weeks to help get all the orders out, and we’re only just starting to get ahead and build the stock back up.
One of the other projects I’ve taken upon myself is investigating new outlets for some of our products.  This has proved to be quite tricky with lots of hoops to jump through and information to learn, but I’m making good progress (albeit a bit slowly!).
On Wednesday, I spent 15 minutes making a little jig out of wood to put together the small mandrels for our buffing wheels.  It’s really sped up production of them, and we no longer have to worry about the mandrels getting damaged if we overtighten the vice.  I’ve been busy clearing the studio today (Thursday) as Terry has a remote demo coming up this evening in Norway!

We’re starting to look towards the Newark Show, as it’s already only 5 weeks away!  We are planning a slight modification to our display stands to make them lighter and slightly more compact (although you wouldn’t notice by looking at them) so that means I’ve got to get out my angle grinder and welder!  Wish me luck, or we may be showing up to the show with everything in cardboard boxes!

We had a question come in this week from one of our stockists, who had a customer asking if Friction Polish could be used on an item that will be left outside.  In short, the answer is no, because the Friction Polish is more of a decorative finish it won’t hold up if it’s being constantly battered by the weather.  If you need a finish for a piece that will be outside, it needs to be extremely resistant to water, hard wearing and UV resistant.
I suggested the best option would be either the Finishing Oil or the Acrylic Gloss/Satin Lacquer.

The Finishing Oil is very water-resistant, can easily be re-applied if needed over time, and is resistant to UV rays, meaning the wood will resist discolouration and the finish won’t crack when exposed to the sun.
The Acrylic Gloss/Satin Lacquer is also very water-resistant, as it’s a coating that completely coats and seals the wood.  It would be a great option for small projects, but if you needed to finish anything larger it could be difficult to get an even coverage.  It also has the same UV resistant properties.
Both of these options have pros and cons, so it’s always best to tailor the finish to your specific project.

I had a question yesterday asking why Chestnut don’t do a pink Spirit Stain, Mel then told me that once upon a time, she was experimenting with creating a pink Spirit Stain from our Iridescent Paint!  The experiment was to add a solvent (in this case our Spirit Thinners) to our Pink Iridescent Paint to turn it into a stain.  It worked quite well, although the Spirit Thinners dropped out of the Iridescent Paint very quickly.  Another way to make a pink stain is to mix our White Spirit Stain with a small amount of our Red Spirit Stain.   This will give you a pink that can be mixed to the exact colour you need for your project.   As all of our Spirit Stains can be mixed with one another, this can be a great way to create colours that aren’t on the shelf or even just slight variations of existing colours.

I’m planning to do some more livestreams over the coming months, so if you have a suggestion for a project, please let me know!  Maybe something you want to try yourself but don’t know how, something you’ve tried but haven’t had success with, or even just something you think could be fun!  I’d love to hear some suggestions.

I’m really loving being here at Chestnut, it feels like the time is flying by!  I hope you enjoyed my little insight as to what’s been going on at HQ, Terry will be back next week with some more interesting questions, so make sure to let him know how good this week’s newsletter was!  Haha
I’m sure I’ll be back soon.

Thanks,

Nathanael