When poly dries, light does not seem to diffuse through the layer of finish. Rather, reflections happen on the surface, resulting in very crisp and sharp refelctions. Look closely at light points on poly finish and they all have sharp edges. Clinical to a fault.

Oil finished (tung, linseed, etc) on the other hand gives soft diffused reflections, where light points have fuzzy edges. Warm and lucious.

G.

BTW, I heard over the weekend that manufacturers are mandated to phase out certain types of finishes by 2007(?). What are the details of this?

Gar.

If you have a few minutes to spare for a great finish try this.

Sand your wood up to 220 and then litely go over it again with 400, especially on end grain and just break off the fuzzies.

Apply two coats of tung oil; after at least 3 hours of the first coat very litely sand with 400 and apply second coat. allow the oil to tack up and then burnish smooth with a clean cloth. let dry at leat overnight depending on the tung oil you used. It should be hard dry and no longer gummy or tacky.

Buy the best natural brush you can find. a good two inch brush is going to cost around 20.00. buy a gallon of paint thinner for cleaning the brush. clean the brush three or four times with small amounts of thinner. clean the brush so it's like it was brand new. dry it off and wrap it up. it will last a long long time.

Apply coat one of Varnish. let dry overnight, sand with 320 to break down the standing wood fibers and ready the surface for the next coat. dust off all powder residue

Apply coat two and let dry overnight. sand again with 320 paper and dust off all powder residue. You must sand in between all coats for adhesion of the coats. Varnish does not burn in to itself. it relies on a mechanical bond.

Apply coat three, let dry overnight, sand with 400 paper, dust off.

Apply the last coat, (4) let dry... at least overnight, days would be fine and even a week or two if you can wait.

Now for the part that will bring your finished piecs to life. Very carfully wet sand with 400 wet-or-dry paper. use 3 or 4 drops of dish soap in liter of water. the soap has a surfactent in it which is a wetting agent and give the water lubricity.

as you sand, wipe off a spot and look and see that all is smooth. you will notice indentation in the finish as small shiny areas that the sand paper has not hit yet. You should get all of these out (or at least most of it) and we can move on to the next step.

Useing 0000 steel wool. with a steady hand in the direction of the grain. pad down the whole piece. The steel wool will get into any recesses you missed and even out the whole finish. It will start to look a little dull and not very shiny. We are looking for a satin finish so just wool the piece down so there are no swirls, archs, or strange patterns on the surface.

dust everything off. You have been very carefull not to cut through any of the delicate corner or edge areas so now we can finish up.

Apply a thin coat of Johnsons Paste Wax. buy it in the grocery store. If you have a large project, work in small areas.
When the wax start to haze over, wait 15 more seconds and with a clean cloth gently rub out the wax. You will see a shine start to come out, the steel wool marks will fade away and your cloth will glide across the wood with a silky feel.

one more coat of wax and sit back and admire.

The tung oil will work into the wood and bring out it's tone and accentuate the grain structure, along with hardening the wood fibers inside.

The Varnish ( I always use long oil, marine, spar, varnishes) will amber out and mellow with time. the richness of the wood will be brought out even more with age.

It all sounds like a lot of work but if your making somethine for yourself, why not take the extra time to beautify and protect your project. One you do this a time or two you'll see there isnt all that much involved in the process.

Bill

Thanks for the detailed intructions. Definitely one for the archives. Truth be told, I switched over to wipe-on before I really gave brushing a try. Now that I have my shed up, I can move my finishing out of the basement and take my time with it.

I have the perfect piece to practice on. Finally finished my Smith Horns by increasing the thickness of the bells. It's still my intent to re-do these next year with real wood, so I don't mind experimenting with them.

Thx,
Gar.

• Smith Horns