Hello Chestnuteers

I hope all is well with you, and you’ve been finding some workshop time now that the evenings are drawing in. I’m enjoying a short break at the moment, but the questions never take a holiday! (Don’t feel too sorry for me though, I’m writing this one in advance before I go away).

Last week I was talking about Burnishing Cream and Cut’n’Polish, and the question was asked about what to use to smooth down a sanding sealer to get the best effect if you want to use a lacquer afterwards (and can’t use the two products above)? The normal advice here is to use the last abrasive that you used on the bare timber to sand back the sealer. To improve on this we suggest working up to the White NyWeb which, whilst technically non-abrasive, cuts back at a superfine level and will bring up a sheen on a sealer, giving a great foundation for the lacquer. It’s not quite as effective as the Burnishing Cream or Cut’n’Polish, but it’s close.

And we’re often asked ‘how is the White NyWeb non-abrasive?’. Well as I said above, that’s technically true – unlike the other colours available it doesn’t contain Silicon Carbide or Aluminium Oxide, both of which are abrasive grits used to give a cut. The White has neither of these, so it doesn’t have a measurable grit, but the very texture of the web (I want to say ‘coarse’ but that’s too…well, coarse a word for it) gives an extremely fine smoothing action.

You know that I’m a great believer in the benefit of using a Sanding Sealer and I’m always going on about the benefits of doing so. But someone called recently who was rushing to finish a job and had run out of sealer and wanted to know the drawbacks of putting a lacquer straight onto bare wood. All of our lacquers can be used ‘coat-on-coat’ – that is, straight onto bare wood. Using a sealer cuts down on the number of coats needed and makes life easier as the sealer is designed to be sanded, it contains a lubricant to assist this, whereas a lacquer is both harder to sand and more prone to showing any accidental scratches. A sealer is more forgiving during application as well, making getting a great base for further coatings much easier.

I should be back in the office in time to get the next Newsletter out, it might be a rush but we should be ok, so until then…

Look after yourselves

Terry