"Remember When?" I remember when I could purchase a quart of polyurethane varnish for a little over ten bucks. A couple years later I noticed it was selling $12.99 a quart. Last winter I bought some at $13.97 a quart. The other day I was drifting around the Menard's store and I noticed polyurethane varnish was now $16.97 per quart.
(WHAT!!!!) I wonder where the price is going to be in two years from now. I have been a little careless about taking care of my open varnish cans in the past, but now I will have to start to protect my varnish inventory like it is part of my annuity retirement plan.
(Seriously! I don't even spend $16.97 on a bottle of wine...)
One of the changes that I have done lately is that I have switched from using a poly varnish, which is water based, and went to using an oil based varnish. When talking with other members of our wood working club a lot of them are already using an oil based varnish. Some feel the oil gives the wood project a better luster. Some feel oil makes the wood grain show up a little more. I won't argue with either of those two points, but it has a strong odor and you want to make sure there is good ventilation wherever you use an oil base varnish.
I went out and spent some of my Father's day money for a varnish finishing sprayer. In my mind it seemed like this purchase should make the finishing phase of my projects go a little faster. So the first step was I had to build a temporary spray station. I put up some cardboard and laid down some old towels and then I was ready to spray away. I had visions that this was really going to be a little bit of heaven.
I had three patio chairs that I had built last winter, but never had vanished them. This was the perfect place to use this sprayer. There are a lot of slats and spaces that are not easy to reach with a brush. I will have to say that the sprayer made quick work of it. It took about 40 minutes to cover the three chairs.
The nightmare was when I was once was done coating all the chairs it was clean up time. I had to dismantle all the pieces of the sprayer and clean all these little parts in mineral spirits. Not so easy. That procedure almost took 30 minutes to do. Sticky varnish everywhere. That step took the fun out of using oil varnish in a finishing sprayer.
Now since these chairs do set outside in the elements I wanted to use an oil based exterior varnish. I did manage to apply two coats and in some areas of the chairs, three coats of varnish. Because of the size of this project I did appreciate having the sprayer. Will I use it again? I want to try it sometime using the water based varnish and hopefully the cleanup will go a lot smoother, but I not sure it was a good investment.
To the left is the tool box that I had blogged about earlier. Now in this case I used Poly (water based) varnish. Also I brushed this on and I am happy with the results. It will be setting indoors 99% of the time so it doesn't need the exterior protection. Clean up for this job was easy.
When varnishing the jenga blocks
(see previous blogs) I used a Marine spar varnish which is a heavy duty type oil varnish for outdoor projects. When doing these I just cut up an old T-shirt into small pieces and then rolled up one of those pieces into a wad and soaked it in varnish that I had thinned with mineral spirits and wiped it on to each piece. Clean up involved throwing the little wad of t-shirt away.
Each of those blocks received two coats of marine spar varnish.
(It was fun. Almost as much fun as sanding.)
I have tried to spend a little more time this spring than usual when it comes to finishing some of my projects. I will admit that the fun is in the building of the project not in the finishing touches of that project. Yet the finishing touches are what makes the project and this is also a phase that I need to focus on a little more. .
(So --- I may have a used finishing sprayer for sale. Anyone interested?)
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