Finishing

It would be hard to find a question in woodworking more often asked and more often inadequately answered than how to make cherry look old without blotching. How many magazine articles have you [...]

Maybe it’s because of the decades I spent restoring old and antique furniture, so I realize how difficult it can often be to match new parts to old. Or maybe it’s because of the scorn I feel for [...]

I got this question from a friend and thought I should share my answer on the blog because it addresses several issues. Here’s the question: I was reading about finishing hickory and most people [...]

In 1946 a fellow named William M. Barr invented a new paint stripper based on the solvent, methylene chloride. It quickly took off in the marketplace because it was a huge advance over the [...]

One of the most difficult tasks in wood finishing is matching the color of a new part you have installed in furniture or cabinets to the existing color on the other parts. The usual way [...]

Like a movie star, oak possesses natural good looks. Unlike a movie star, however, oak is easy to work with—even during finishing. Oak’s distinctive grain pattern (see photo below) is what people [...]

This is pretty basic, but here goes anyway. When you have a situation of peeling paint, you have to remove it before applying fresh paint, or your efforts will be ineffective. Scraping usually [...]

Over my career making and restoring furniture I’ve found washcoats helpful now and then when staining wood. A washcoat is a finish, any finish, thinned with two or more parts thinner and applied [...]

Am I the only person who thinks the EPA’s proposed ban on methylene chloride in paint strippers is a big and unnecessary overstep by government? Ever since the EPA announced on May 10, 2018, that [...]

You may be aware that I have a connection with Denmark. My wife is Danish, and we lived there for two years in the mid-1970s. So I guess that makes me the go-to expert on all furniture Danish. [...]

Those who follow this blog know that I’m pretty taken with the advances being made in paints and coatings. We might not be seeing these advances in the paint we buy at the home center yet, but [...]

I get a lot of questions about finish problems, and, as you can imagine, they are often difficult to diagnose simply from the description. In these situations, a picture can really be worth a [...]