Hi

Thank you to everyone who emailed me back last week in an attempt to stop our emails going into your junk folder. Only time will tell if it’s worked (or, because we’re only trying to achieve what should be happening anyway, we’ll only know if it doesn’t work!).

Enough backward thinking, I’m looking forward to being in Spalding this time next week, ready to get everything set up for our Woodturning Weekender. There’s just about still time to get a ticket to join us, either in person, or online. You’ll kick yourself if you don’t. Just head on over to the Woodturning Weekender website to find out more and get booked in.

An interesting and multipart question this week asked what can be done with an item (in this case a small box) which had been waxed, but was now suffering from water damage. To make things more complicated, sanding back to bare wood wasn’t possible. There isn’t an easy answer to this one. Wax doesn’t really like anything else being put on top of it other than more wax. It might be possible to simply apply a new coat of wax with either 0000 Steel Wool or, better, an Orange NyWeb. These will clean off most of the damaged coat whilst applying another one to replace it, and, with a bit of luck, this might be enough to repair it. Much will depend on how much damage has been done. If it’s superficial, this should work; one of the great things about wax is that it can be very easy to repair, should it be needed.

The question continued, asking what else could be applied to give more protection to prevent the finish being damaged again? If a fresh coat of wax does the job, then the best advice is to apply a coat or two of Microcrystalline Wax, which is much better at resisting water and finger marks. However, it’s not as tough as a lacquer, which would be a better choice. But this can’t be applied over a wax, and we’d already established that the wax finish couldn’t be mechanically removed. Would a solvent do the job?

White spirit is the usual solvent for waxes, and this, in conjunction with some Steel Wool or NyWeb should remove most of it. It might be a bit messy, though. In this case, a coat of sanding sealer had been applied previously; the white spirit shouldn’t affect that, and as long as most of the wax was gone, the lacquer should just about be able to stick.

Was there a reason I didn’t suggest Hard Wax Oil instead of stripping back and lacquer? Wax is liable to resist the oil, so it wouldn’t be a good option. If the wax is removed, it’s still not ideal as the surface still has the sanding sealer on it, which will stop the oil from penetrating and forming a good bond with the surface. It would be a good option normally, it would certainly stand up to more abuse than the wax, but it really needs to be used on bare wood.

(When I say bare wood, I really mean unsealed wood – Hard Wax Oil will go over most stains quite easily).

It’s kind of nice when one conversation spawns all three questions for a Newsletter, it helps me cover lots of points and what-ifs.

And that’s where I’m going to leave things for this week, but don’t worry, I’m sure there’ll be more next Friday.

Have a great week

Terry