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To maximize the beauty of curly maple (also bird’s-eye maple), you want the curls to “pop” – that is, be significantly darker than the rest of the wood. To do this you need to get more color into [...]

Here’s a caution when stripping paint or finish from furniture or woodwork. Most of the newer “safer” strippers are sold in plastic containers and contain the solvent n-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) [...]

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 made of rot-resistant woods such as redwood, cedar, [...]

While visiting my son and daughter-in-law, I noticed that she had a pretty ugly black scrape on the side of her car. She had gotten it when she backed out of a tight parking space and rubbed up [...]

I got a question about finishes for turned wooden pens. Full disclosure: I’ve never turned a pen. Nor have I turned a bowl. My experience with the lathe has been turning parts for furniture I’m [...]

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 the [...]

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 another post I told you [...]

A friend called me the other day with a question. He was matching a crackle-lacquer finish from the 1980s and wanted to know how this finish is made and how to apply it. Crackle lacquer is [...]

In the December, 2001 issue of Popular Woodworking (issue # 125) I wrote about how to construct a simple but safe home spray booth. This article was reproduced in my book, “Flexner on Finishing.” [...]

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. But not so fast. Now [...]

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 [...]

Here’s a tip that you will thank me for if you aren’t already doing it. When you want to secure the lid on a paint, stain or finish can, step on it rather than hammer it closed. Using your body [...]