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Winter is fast approaching, and it may be that your shop or garage is not warm enough for finishes to dry in a reasonable time. Bob Flexner has the answer.

Recently, I had an exchange with a friend who does woodworking as a hobby, and the exchange made me realize that the need to thin oil and varnish, especially varnish,...

  A woodworker friend called wanting to know where he could buy some methylated spirits. He had just read in a book that it was the best solvent to use...

I can remember very frustrating times in my shop when I worked like crazy on a refinished piece of furniture to match the color on a sample piece of furniture,...

Here’s a question that comes up often. What is the best way to apply a stain or finish? To begin with, all stains and finishes can be applied with one...

A woodworker asked me recently, “What the heck is a witness line?” Well, this opens up an interesting discussion. One of my pet peeves since I began teaching finishing, has...

Air quality initiatives affect coatings availability in different areas. From the December 2016 issue, #229 Four years ago in this column I explained how VOC regulations are putting restrictions on...

It’s that time of year and you may be thinking about how to take care of your wood deck. Here’s the easy way to approach it, at least for decks...

In the last few years at least three major coatings’ suppliers have introduced deck coatings that have failed often enough so they have generated a number of class-action lawsuits against...

Smart coatings fascinate me. In an earlier post I told you about a paint that uses nanotechnology to cause pee to bounce off walls back onto the shoes of the perp....

In my March 22 posting I passed on the report that Sherwin-Williams is buying Valspar for $11 billion creating one huge supplier of many brands of finishing products we use....

One of the biggest problems woodworkers have is runs and sags drying in their finishes, especially with slower drying finishes such as varnish (including polyurethane and wiping varnish) and [...]