WEEK COMMENCING 17 AUGUST 2025

Hi

How’s your week been? Are your thoughts turning to craft fairs, and making pieces for sale, or friends and family? We often see an upturn in sales around this time of year and into September. It’s a shame that some of the shows that used to take place around this time are no more, but we still have the Harrogate show to look forward to—but even that is only two days now.

I sometimes worry about the future of woodworking shows, and miss the ones that used to take place. Which was your favourite?

We heard from a regular customer, asking about refinishing a chair. This was a 1950s school chair (before my time!), and, unusually, the question was about the steel tubular frame.
The brief was to keep the original look, just clean it up. Could a lacquer be used to offer extra protection?

The problem here is that most of our lacquers are formulated for timber; they just won’t stick to wood. However, the Acrylic Gloss Lacquer uses a slightly different formula, and can also be used on metal, and will adhere to it without any problems.

Another option would be the Microcrystalline Wax, which would possibly be less wasteful (i.e. not an aerosol application), and would offer a good protection too.

There are some very artistic people out there, and we often get asked about sealing wood prior to painting a design on it. This came up again a couple of weeks ago.

The answer depends mostly on what type of paint is being used. Normally, it’s an acrylic paint, so our Acrylic Sanding Sealer or Cellulose Sanding Sealer would be fine with this. (If in doubt, use the cellulose one, this will work with most top coats—but do a test first!)

The other thing to consider here is which topcoat will be applied. Again, if unsure, use the Acrylic Lacquer (one of the aerosols is best); this will work on either sealer, and shouldn’t affect the painted design.

We like to think we know a thing or two about finishes and finishing, but we do get caught out sometimes. Usually it’s when we’re asked if one of our products is compatible with another brand’s finish.

In cases like this, we can usually make an educated guess, but we can never be sure there isn’t something unexpected in the make-up of the other finish, which could cause an incompatibility. Even if we know it worked before, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that the formulation has changed!

Our advice in a situation like this is always to do a test first. Most incompatibilities will normally show up within 24–48 hours, when everything has been allowed to dry.
Things to look out for include white spots or patches in the finish, and areas where the top coat might be delaminating from the one beneath.

That’s everything from me for this week. I hope you enjoy the long weekend, the weather is good, and you get to do everything you want to do!

All the best

Terry