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Not everything has to have a furniture-grade finish. If you read the woodworking magazines or look online, you often come across instructions for filling pores, glazing, toning, rubbing out, and [...]

Why stains and finishes sometimes dry slowly. A friend called with a problem. He had applied an ebony oil stain to oak and after the stain had dried for two days, the polyurethane he then brushed [...]

The truth behind craters and ridges. If your finishing career has been limited to finishing projects you have made, you may never have experienced fish eye. But if you have done much refinishing, [...]

A brief history of a not-so-romantic woodworking education system. Ever since the renewal of interest in woodworking in the 1970s, especially among amateurs and small-shop professionals, there [...]

Achieve great results with the least amount of work. Think about it: What’s the first thing you do when judging someone else’s woodwork? You run your hand over it, of course. If it feels really [...]

Linen and more. Three times in recent memory, articles have appeared in major woodworking magazines instructing readers to use linen for the outer cloth in a French polishing pad. No explanation, [...]

Bob Flexner compares the three basic finishing tools (rag, brush, and spray gun) in terms of their cost and efficiency.

Even in wood finishing. One of my favorite songs back in the 1960s was Bob Dylan’s, The Times, They are A-Changin’. This theme applies today to what’s happening in wood finishing. It’s natural [...]

Discover what finishing products work well together. I’m sure you’ve come across cautions in woodworking books and magazines instructing you to “use a compatible product” – stain, filler, glaze, [...]

All levels of finishing are burdened with myths, but the types of finishes used by amateurs and sold in home centers and woodworking stores suffer the most. Myths about polyurethane are a good [...]

Putting some sense back into a simple task. For most people, the first experience brushing comes with oil or latex paint, or with alkyd or polyurethane varnish. Each of these coatings is [...]

Veneer is just thin wood – so don’t be afraid of it. I love repairing old furniture – the older the better. I find repairing more challenging and satisfying than making new because someone else, [...]