Hi

Well that week seems to have gone by quickly! At least, it did from where I’m sitting. I hope it’s been a good one for you. There’s not a lot to tell you about this week, so here’s this week’s featured picture from Mick Giles, showing one of a set of table lamps he made from some rescued legs from a table. These were cleaned up and finished with WoodWax 22.

Nice save Mick! Let’s jump into the questions…

One question that came in this week asked about the best way to finish a ukulele. I have no specific knowledge about this, and I don’t know for certain if the finish might affect the tone etc – although I doubt it. As far as I can tell, the most important factor is that the finish needs to be hardwearing enough to withstand all the handling and strumming! Our normal recommendation for guitars (and now, also, ukuleles), is to use one of our lacquers (and the relevant sanding sealer). Any of the lacquers will be fine, the choice really depends on personal preference. Melamine Lacquer will be quicker drying, of course, but Acrylic Lacquer is better in confined spaces. The aerosol lacquers can also be used.

Bleeding stains (no exclaimation mark!) were the subject of another question. A thin walled bowl had been turned, with different colours being used on the inside and outside. One was black, and it had wicked through to the other side, spoiling the desired effect. Can this be avoided?
There’s no 100% answer to this, the stain is doing what it should – penetrating the timber – and depending on how the blank has been prepared and the orientation of the grain, which can be more of a problem in some areas than others. The best solution we have to offer is to use a diluted sanding sealer. It’s one of the few times we suggest thinning the sealer, but that’s because in this situation we want it to soak into the timber to form a barrier, stopping the stain penetrating to the other side. Both sides can be coated, and this should have little to no effect on the performance of the stain or the finish used afterwards.

Another question we get on a regular basis is ‘can we have the Safety Data Sheet for [any of our products]’? These are sometimes referred to as COSHH sheets, Material Safety Data Sheets or Health and Safety Sheets, but we understand the correct term to be ‘Safety Data Sheet’ (SDS).
These documents are mandatory for any products that can be classed as hazardous, and are freely available to download from our website. We’re about to undertake a major review and update of them all as some of the details change over time. (Some years ago the order of the sections was changed, nothing else, and we had to reproduce the whole lot!)
Time was, the SDS was four pages long. They’re now over 17 pages long, and will probably be even longer after this review. It’s a very costly project, both in time and money, but we take our responsibilities very seriously. I expect that this will have very little impact on most readers, but it’s good to know that they’re available if needed.

And that’s everything for this week. I hope you found a few nuggets of interest there. I’ll be back again next week with more to peruse, in the meantime, have a good week, I’ll see you in seven!

Cheers

Terry