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Give ordinary wood the charm of old age. I love the look of old paint—I’ve often tried to capture it in new furniture I’ve made. I’m not trying to build fake antiques, however. I’m just trying to [...]

How to choose, condition, and clean a finishing brush. It’s really tempting to buy an inexpensive brush for finishing. Say you spend $4 on a standard paint brush and throw it away rather than [...]

Cooking wood in your kitchen can produce results that rival specialty kilns. Luthiers have long used roasted or tempered wood in stringed instruments because the roasting process pre-stresses the [...]

Wiping varnish is simply any brand of oil-based alkyd (regular) varnish or oil-based polyurethane varnish in any sheen (gloss or satin) thinned about half with mineral spirits (paint thinner). [...]

Improve your results by understanding wood characteristics. Each species of wood has unique finishing characteristics, both positive and negative. To help you determine how to choose the right [...]

Apply a professional, quick-drying and durable finish at home. You may have heard of catalyzed finishes: pre-catalyzed lacquer, post-catalyzed lacquer and catalyzed or “conversion” varnish. These [...]

A few sample boards can save you from future finishing headaches. Finish manufacturers targeting the furniture industry and large professional finish shops provide a lot of information about [...]

Bleeding, blushing, blotching, orange peel and fish eye. The basics of wood finishing are really quite simple: You use one of three tools – a rag, brush or spray gun – to transfer a liquid stain [...]

Solutions to a baker’s dozen of common finishing difficulties. It’s easy enough to provide instructions for applying finishes. But in the real world, things go wrong; problems occur that you have [...]

Four short (but crucial) finishing subjects. What follows are four concise – but important – finishing topics about which you’ve likely wondered. 1 – Metamerism Most of us have experienced a [...]

Why are you working harder than you need to? Sanding is boring. It’s boring to watch, it’s boring to do, and I find it boring to write about. But myths are fun to write about, and there are some [...]

Some of the most common questions we get are about finishing. How do I get a better finish on my project? What’s the easiest finish to apply? What’s the most durable finish? [...]