Tips and Tricks for finishers
Tips & Tricks
1. Switch out your ¼” air hose fitting to high volume 3/8″ fittings and you will increase you Air volume by 30% This will increase your transfer efficiency creating a better finish
2. Take your material pails off the floor 10 degrees colder can make your material 30% thicker. In line heaters are available that will heat material to a constant 90 degrees eliminating the need for non compliant solvents and reducers. Your material will dry faster with less solvent entrapment or blushing.
3. When switching to a water based product you need bigger tips than what you have been using for solvent based materials Not using the proper tip size or a bigger pump will give you a rough finish.
4. Using a solvent stain base rather than a Mineral spirits/ Naptha base and you can Top coat in an hour or less rather than having to wait over night.
5. When using a NGR Dye stain and Concentrates add 5% of your top coat material to your Acetone dye solution and it will act as a binder for the color reducing the risk of your top coat lifting due to poor adhesion
1. Switch out your ¼” air hose fitting to high volume 3/8″ fittings and you will increase you Air volume by 30% This will increase your transfer efficiency creating a better finish
2. Take your material pails off the floor 10 degrees colder can make your material 30% thicker. In line heaters are available that will heat material to a constant 90 degrees eliminating the need for non compliant solvents and reducers. Your material will dry faster with less solvent entrapment or blushing.
3. When switching to a water based product you need bigger tips than what you have been using for solvent based materials Not using the proper tip size or a bigger pump will give you a rough finish.
4. Using a solvent stain base rather than a Mineral spirits/ Naptha base and you can Top coat in an hour or less rather than having to wait over night.
5. When using a NGR Dye stain and Concentrates add 5% of your top coat material to your Acetone dye solution and it will act as a binder for the color reducing the risk of your top coat lifting due to poor adhesion
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Woodfinishers Weblog 
I just had my cabinets re faced with a dark stain. Can you suggest a product to use to clean and polish them? The cabinet refinisher said pledge and others like it leave a build up…any suggestions?
Thanks
Robin
Hi Robin,
The question would be what did the re finisher use as a top coat? if it was a polyurethane then once it has properly cured 2 weeks, then you can clean it with about any thing, that is one of the toughest finishes out there. If it’s a lacquer finish I would suggest warm water and vinegar. It will clean disinfect and not tear up the finish. Al way test on a corner to see if what you are about to use will cause a bad reaction. bad reactions are dissolving the finish and making it sticky or turning it milky white. of course don’t leave water on it then dry the surface.
Curious that you finisher told you what not to do and didn’t tel you what to do.
I am refinishing a 1946 Brunwick pool table. The top rails are Walnut, The skirts are poplar, and the leg bases are mahogany.
My goal is to have all three surfaces match as close in color (dark walnut) and have a very hard and durable finish.
I am currently stripping the table…what steps should I take to match color? Should I bleach any of the pieces?
What would you reccomend for a strong durable high gloss finish?
thanks
Jim
Hi Jim,
You have the greatest finishing challenge there there is: getting different wood to look the same with the same stain. The first thing to do is bleach the woods to get as much color out as possible then I would get a stain that was about three shades lighter than you want to go and start out on the poplar which is the softest of the wood and the one that is going to absorb the most stain and come out the darkest. you might want to lay out a stain controller on that wood as it has the tendency to stain rather blotchy due to the irregular density of the wood. You can make your own stain controller out of lacquer and sealer about 80% thinner and 20% sealer. Sand that down and then the stain won’t penetrate too deep in the softer areas of the wood. After that I would stain the other sections, Walnut takes a stain very nicely as it is a very hard wood. the mahogany unfortantely can do all sorts of different things as there are about 300 different types of mahog some softer then others.
I would do some experimenting on the back and undersides where, if it all goes to hell you can strip it down again and start over. Just to add to your dilemma as it is as old as it is you wouldn’t be able to test the stains out on a similar piece of wood. It has aged and has had all manner of different coating on it over the years. So Unless you had the sister table that has gone through the same treatments over the year and can test on that one no other piece of wood is going to react the same.
Once you have it stained let that dry for a few days. The next thing is to tint your sealer and tone the lighter areas with the tinted sealer ( if you are going to use a polyurethane top coat then I would use the poly as the sealer. Thin it down with a urethane thinner so that it soaks in well. to bring the color up to match the darker areas. If you are really good at that you can get it all to match relatively quickly with out over building the coats then you spray the shaded top coat over the whole thing so that it all looks even then I would top coat it with a high end polyurethane. I have a local brand that is the best I have ever seen manufactured by Ellis paint company here in LA California it called “pinnacle 149cl”
After you have the desired number of coats on there let it dry for a day and then wet sand and buff to a mirror finish. I have guys that use this on very high end pianos and it looks Great and it as hard as you can get.
The tricky part is going to be getting the stains to match on the different woods.
Best of luck.
Greg
would you send some pictures and keep me infoed as to how it goes I would love to post the whole story on the blog
We are doing all our finishes with conversion varnish, but, when it comes to do full filling our problems just begin, the question is: What to use to do full filling and still using C. V. as top coater, it is there some kind of filler for this matter, if it is, what is the name of it.
Thanks for your support.
Martin
Hi Marin,
What is it exactly that you are referring to when you say “full filling” I’m guessing that you are applying a filler paste and want all the grain filled correct?
You can use a vinyl sealer. That would be the easiest although If you need a lot of build it wouldn’t be the most practical as well if you have a lot of build you would want it to fully cure before top coating it. Full cure is about 30 days Yup, you read that right 30 days. I suppose you could get away with less but the point being is that the conversion varnish is a hard finish and you don’t want to trap the solvents that are slowly releasing from the sealer. You can get an odd spider web cracking a month or two down the line when the sealers finally cures under the CV.
If you use a regular sealer the catalyst in the C.V. will react with some of the chemicals in the sealer and will make it blush or turn a milky white.
The other thing you can use is a clear polyester primer, they build quickly and sand fairly easily. the C.V. will do fine over the polyester. that is a very thick product and will do all the grain filling you could want. If you want and even harder finish you should try a polyurethane. I sell one for wood that is great but I would bet that you can find something local.
There is another thing that you could try that might make things a little simpler and that is to use a better, Higher solids conversion Varnish. If you are using the Valspar CV then it is very low solids and so takes several coats and lots of labor to get a build. Gemini Conversion varnish on the other hand has a very high solids content. Gemini is my CV of choice.
let me know if I have answered you questions fully
Best, Greg
Hi Experts,
I need some advice on protecting my valuable furniture.
I put a lot of passion into designing cabinets made from quarter-sawn walnut veneer and it coated by conversion varnish, due to the fact that there is a lot of sun-light (mostly indirect), the furniture has faded considerably- the rich dark color of the walnut is gone!! I wanted to see if you experts could help me with finding a way to restore the original color as well as provide UV protection.
Thank you
Hi Diwa,
There are a few products on the market that will restore wood. I have used products to restore teak and have had good success, you would have to do a little research on that one to find something that works well on walnut and if possible I would test it out on something else first ( I have grown cautious in my old age and test every thing first no matter what the jar or the salesman says). I would try Rockler.com a one place to fine that sort of product. Your biggest problem However is getting the conversion varnish off with out doing more damage to the veneer. stripping it would be the only way to get the CV off but the you might end up bleaching the wood which might be inevitable, in which case your refinisher would have use an oil based stain to bring the natural look back, the color partially gone anyway due to the sun and UV. get the original color back and making it look like it was is an art and will take someone who is and artist rather than just the average refinisher. The process up to this point is going to take someone very good at restoration work. I could recommend a few people if you are in the Los Angeles area. After that is done I would suggest that you have it finished in a polyurethane designed for wood that has UV blockers in it. I have such a product that is manufactures but a local paint company here in the LA area.
I would love to see how it goes
Best, Greg
You need to update this portion of the site, include downloads for photos to be attached, which are most helpful when giving advice, a lot easier to recommend solutions to problems if they are viewable Greg. Hope to see the change soon. Wood finishers usually gather where there are more offers as to ways and means, like woodweb for example. If you expand your sites capabilities past what they are now, i believe you will get more volume as to queries from those who find your site. Being a long time forum participant in this arena, i will be more than happy to go over anything you like concerning improvements ok?
Thanks for your comentary I have a few things to update on the site and have that on the to-do list, actually I’m working on and on line study of word press so that I can up grade the entire blog, that along with business and I haven’t gotten to that just yet thanks for the push- Greg
Hi Chemmy,
My apologies for such a delay in getting back to you I have been out of commission for the last week with stitches in my right hand. Thank you for your suggestion however I’m not sure what direction you are referring to, you want to have me set it up so that you can upload pictures to the site? or so that you can down load pictures from the site? I’m in the process of studying up on the latest version of wordpress and will be up grading the site in the next few months.
Best Greg