Hi

Well, the weather did change for the worse last weekend, but the sun came back out with a vengeance! I hope you’ve had a good week and have been able to enjoy it, and get some workshop time too.
Everything continues as normal for us, including, of course, lots of questions!

I often describe Cellulose Sanding Sealer as being pretty much universal as it works with any of our products which benefit from the use of a sealer. I’m always careful to point out, though, that oils don’t come into this category, and I was asked to confirm this recently; when using a Finishing Oil, should a sanding sealer (of any type) be applied first. The answer is ‘no’. Oils need to penetrate the timber in order to work properly, this helps the oil bond to the wood. A sealer (any of them) will prevent this from happening. Just apply an extra coat or two if needed.
Curiously, an oil sort of does the job of a sealer and can be overcoated with a wax, but the sealer is still better for this as it is, after all, what it’s designed for!

Another interesting question this week concerned our Spirit Stains, and whether they would impair the performance of a glue, or should the glue be applied before the stain? The stain should have no effect on the performance of the glue, so staining first would be best, if it’s possible to do so. But the reverse isn’t necessarily true. Very often a glue will form a film over the surface of the timber and can stop the stain from penetrating, causing the joins to show up. Sometimes it’s not practical to stain the wood first, so if you do have to glue before staining, take as much care as possible to avoid any of it squeezing out onto the visible areas.

Finally, for this week, that old favourite about thinning our materials! But a different take on it, as someone wanted to use our Melamine Lacquer to seal a stain into some rough sawn timber, so a perfect finish wasn’t required. Is there a limit to how much thinner can be added? The answer here is probably a no, but it’s not something we’ve ever really experimented with. Once past a 50/50 mix there won’t really be enough of the ‘good stuff’ present to get the job done, so I wouldn’t advise going that far. The Melamine Lacquer has a higher viscosity than the sealer, so it can be thinned a bit more in situations like this. When working on a large area and needing to help the lacquer to flow out better, up to about 20% should be adequate.

And there you have it for this week. I hope you’ve found at least some of this interesting; please feel free to let your woodturning friends know about our weekly ramblings. And if you’d like to submit some pictures to be featured one week please just send them over.

I’ll see you back here next week

Terry