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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? [...]

Here are some finishing tips I hope you find of value. They are arranged in roughly the order of the typical finishing steps. Sand Oil Finishes Wet It’s not at all necessary to sand wood to very [...]

I needed a way to lift pieces off the surface of my bench for finishing, so I made some 3/4″ x 2″ x 3″ blocks and inserted 1/4″ x 1-1/4″ dowels into them. [...]

A better understanding of what causes grain raising will help you manage it. Our finishing expert Bob Flexner explains this phenomenon and how to deal with it.

Different finishes look different on different species. There are many reasons to choose one finish over another. Usually the most important is for protection and durability – how well a finish [...]