Reformulations may compel you to adjust your finishing process.
By Bob Flexner
Pages 64-66
Many years ago a friend explained to me the difference between woodworking tools and finishes. Woodworking tools, he said, are physics. You can see them. You can see that a band saw isn’t a table saw even though it has a table.
But finishes are chemistry. You can’t see chemistry. Varnish and lacquer, for example, look the same, both in the can and on the wood.
So there is much more opportunity for finishes to be confusing, especially when manufacturers misrepresent them and magazines publish contradictory information about them.
I think this description goes a long way toward explaining why the health problems associated with finish solvents are feared more than those that are obvious with woodworking tools (cutting off your fingers, for example). This, even though the infrequent, low-level exposure to solvents experienced by most amateurs is quite unlikely to cause any problems at all.
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