Hello again! I’m back from a great day in Cardiff (shame about the Rugby though) and that means my business travels for the year are over.
It was great to see some of you there, to be able to offer some advice and to meet some more Conkers members.
To the questions:

We get this one every so often, is Melamine Lacquer suitable to go on top of a melamine finished worktop or kitchen door. The answer is no, the melamine reference is to an additive that makes the finish harder wearing, not that it can be used on melamine surfaces.

A couple of weeks ago we spoke about the speed of Buffing Wheels, we’ve also been asked about what speed to use with the various polishing brushes. As always with these things, the starting point is the speed you feel comfortable at; we’d say around 500rpm is fine, you can go faster but we wouldn’t recommend anything over 1000rpm.

We get asked about the ‘limed’ effect on ash, and the best way to achieve it. This will be the subject of a film in the New Year, and as the phones have been a bit quiet this week I’m going to break this down into three questions;
Firstly, how important is the choice of wood? The answer is very,  ash and oak are the best as they have good open grain, and ash is particularly attractive and this can be exaggerated using our Liming Brush which opens the grain without scratching the surrounding wood.

How to get the best contrast? Opening the grain as above will help, and you can ‘cheat’ a little by making the wood darker as well. There are various options here, including just using one of our wood stains or if you want a bright effect use one of our rainbow stains (great for Christmas ornaments). Seal the stains in, and the pores of the wood, using a sanding sealer or clear lacquer. For a deep black background use the Ebonising Lacquer which will seal the wood at the same time.

And what next? Apply a coat of Liming Wax across the whole surface, wait a few minutes then wipe off the surplus leaving enough in the grain to be decorative. Liming Wax uses titanium dioxide to give the white colour, making it bright and long lasting.
You can also use a Gilt Cream for a metallic contrast, the application is the same but it will need a bit of help to remove the surplus, so use a cloth with something like Lemon Oil, Hard Wax Oil, Food Safe Finish or Cut’n’Polish on it, these will both clean it up and apply a coating over the top at the same time.

Well that’s your five-a-week for this week, there’ll be more next Friday!
Have a good week, keep warm,

Terry