My 4 Favorite Finishes and How to Apply Them

today we're gonna talk about exams I mean I'm sorry finishing and I wanted to go over my favorite finishes now finishing is something that is subjective but I have some very strong philosophies that I subscribe to for finishing and I want to go over them I wanted to talk about my four or five favorite finishes and where I use them and how I do them now there are lots of opinions out there but I'm coming from a place of somebody who likes to get durable finishes that look gorgeous gorgeous is always my number one priority and that get done quickly when you're doing woodworking projects nobody wants to spend all this time working on something and then have to wait full days between coats to cure and have something sitting in your shop you know carrying and leaving a horrible smell and collecting particles from the air that you have to Rhys and out it's just not a good way to finish in my opinion and it leaves so much room for error I like to do beautiful durable and quick in that order so let's get in all these I'm going to show you how I prep for them apply them and how I get them complete and out the door okay so I'm going to quickly go through all the finishes that I like to use and tell you what I like and what application I use them for I think first and foremost when I think about finishing I have a few rules that I live by one is I don't like gloss I think gloss can look very plasticky semi-gloss and gloss I try and keep it in the math and satin areas most things that are matte are oils or things that you wipe on they are penetrating type finishes when I get into the more statins we're talking about our lacquers our water-based poly urethanes and then when I do do gloss or semi-gloss is when I get into epoxy finishes which I would only use on like table tops or bar tops or places where I need ultra ultra durability my number one go to finish absolutely number one because of ease of use and just absolute beauty is shellac and I like to make my own shellac because I feel like it's much higher quality shellac comes from bugs saliva which is such a cool fact I couldn't tell you which bug or anything but somebody told me what that once and I hope it's true because it really blows my mind so you get these shellac flakes and they're mixed with denatured alcohol and we'll get into more about how I use it here in a minute but it comes in different colors most used you know 99% of the time is the D wax blonde shellac because it doesn't really change the color of the project too much they also have what's called Garnett which is a much darker one looks like this and it's really simple finished it's what's used when someone would say a French polish that shellac it's a very very old finish that something that's been used for thousands of years maybe hopefully I'm not over speaking what I do is I mix it very strong very equal parts so one to one let that dissolve it usually takes about 24 hours and then I thin it for use and so you know a jar of one to one will last me quite a long time and and do a lot of projects and what's great about it is that you can reset if you put on too much if it gets wonky you can just get just pure denatured alcohol wipe it down and take off a majority of the finish and just restart over and that's how French polish works is you slowly decrease the amount of shellac that's in there and increase the amount of alcohol and you rub it with a pad and that really buffs out a finish but it comes at a very nice kind of matte satin finish and it penetrates really well the other benefit of shellac is it can go over anything and it can go under anything it's super easy to use you don't have to worry about mixing so sometimes I'll use it as my first couple coats and then come over with my finish whatever I'm using my next favorite finish is one that I make my own again maybe there's a theme here I like to make my own finishes but it's what I use for cutting boards and shop jigs and here is a cutting board we mark and I have put together a long form class it's a believe nine unit nine video class on making this cutting board so it's a few hours of instructional content and it is that is really cool huh so what I do is four parts beeswax you can just fine Amazon and I'll link everything I have here down in the pinned comment and the description but you just get 100% natural beeswax and mineral oil you do four to one I heat it in a crock pot or a chafing dish something that's nice and slow until it's all mixed together and then you let it cool down and you get this really cool sort of goo we call it the cat Guu stop it and it's amazing because you just wipe it on let it sit till it completely soaks in put it on a few more coats on the new cutting board you just buff it out and the finish is like it's just special I don't know I've never had anything that looked and felt this good on a cutting board now it's not durable on like furniture pieces of jewelry boxes so you couldn't use it there but with shop furniture I really like it because I can reapply at any time and it's got that wax in it so my tools slide really easily like you know shooting boards I you know different stuff where you're in contact with hand tools it is really great to have a surface that you know is gonna be slick and then nothing else is gonna stick to it like you know your errant glue or finish this works great so that is my number one cutting board and jig fixture finish also dries really fast so it's great to use because you can get right to working almost immediately so the last two are kind of in the same category water-based polyurethane and lacquer both of these have like a reco time of five minutes they dry really fast I never brush these I only spray them I have an HVLP video which I will link right here you can get into HVLP for very cheap my HVLP gun set was like hunter bucks and it's it's kind of in my opinion the only way to finish projects one because of the really high atomization it anything is going to dry really fast but especially these very fast drying finishes plus you don't really get overspray you'll get dust in your shop but you can really if you're wearing respirator and goggles you can spray it inside because it dries before it hits anything else and and that's what's great is the really fine mist isn't going to get anywhere but your project and so I'll just put down a piece of paper spray it in the shop make sure it's well ventilated dries right away lacquer is one of my favorite finishes because it just is beautiful it lays down so smooth it's very easy to reapply it's very easy to thin and it's very easy to sand and so I'll use lacquer on any interior kind of decorative pieces I have drawer boxes you know shelves that kind of thing that aren't going to get really really high use it's not that strong finish and then when I'm doing things like night stands that kind of thing sometimes I'll use lacquer but I'll also use water-based poly if I need to build sort of a film finish and something that's gonna have drinks set on top of it I'll go with water-based poly now as you can tell my jar of semi-gloss is completely opened and full and then this is just completely empty if you get into the glossy or stuff on the poly urethanes it's gonna look really plasticy but gloss lacquer can look really cool on like really decorative stuff like I did that humidor video linked right here that came out so good because we put gloss finish on it and then buffed it out to a really high shine some pieces of furniture just really require that and that may be your cup of tea too maybe you like glossy stuff my last favorite finish is epoxy and of course total boat epoxy who is a proud supporter of the woodworking community they're not sponsoring this video but man did they take care of us woodworkers so if you're gonna buy any epoxy make sure you buy total boat the tabletop poxy is really good because you can pour it pretty thick and if you like have like a table that's just gonna get beat up or like a bar top such a good finish its self leveling and it really just comes out gorgeous and then they're epoxies which you saw me use on my Japanese sharpening station linked right here um they just are really good finish they are really tough to use as a finish because you really it's you got a brush which it's just a nightmare in my personal opinion because you get brushstrokes and that kind of thing so one of the tricks that I'll use on this is I'll use a heat gun after I lay it down and just kind of good keep going over it and that helps it lay down but sometimes you have to put it on and then sand it really really good and then just do a really light top coat and that'll help you get a nice finish on it but this is what I use in like high water applications and of course to fill imperfections cracks things and projects I wouldn't use anything other than total boat so let's get into how to apply them and how to make them look good now I'm going to assume that everybody stands there their boards up to 180 or 40 up to you sometimes I'll go by with 400 and just give it a quick little hand sanding to knock down any rough spots but I do not raise the grain on projects I know people who say you should raise the grain I disagree fully and here's the reason your finish is gonna raise the grain you're gonna stand in between coats and so why raise it twice and why I add water to a project that is going to potentially warp boards or change the shape of something when it dries so I don't do that I raise the grain with the finish and then I'll sand in between I'll do two coats almost always two coats do a sanding with 400 one final coat and that's all I ever need so the way that slack works is I'll have my D wax Lac flakes I'll add them in a jar do one-to-one with denatured alcohol which you can get at any hardware store or on even on Amazon it's great and then I'll let that dissolve about 24 hours and then what I'll do is I'll take this one-to-one finish and I'll go about one to four for my first coat one to four for my second coat and then go one to eight for my final coat there's a great video by Mike Peck vich from fine woodworking he kind of wrote the Bible on using this is where I learned I'll link that down below and it's just what's great about this is it dries in like a minute or two you can recoat it you can buff it out there's lots of ways to use this or you can use it as sort of like a primer for for finish so I'm just gonna add this in here and a great way to store your rags is in your jar of one to one so you don't have to keep using rags shellac is not one of those finishes you have to worry about laying out your rags like you would in oil base so you don't have to worry about burning down your shop we already know it's one to one so I'm just gonna add a few parts here and make it about one two four and we're just gonna dunk our rag you can literally just wipe it on it's so easy I'm just gonna give it a coat and the great thing is it's self wedding so if you get like a big glob that dries as kind of a bubble you can just sort of buff it out like this and get it on there so I'll just get just wipe it down a few times you can tell it's dry when there's no more like Sheen to it when you look at it from the side and then we're just gonna go ahead and do another coat here and this one won't be as aggressive we don't want to just completely flood the surface here because then they'll just mean more work for us down the road when we're buffing it out but we're just gonna get it wet again wipe it down let it dry super easy okay and that's already dry I mean that was legitimately we turned the camera off and turn it back on fifteen seconds later and then I'm just gonna give it a very light sort of scuff sanding then I'm gonna add a little bit more denatured alcohol to my mix here give that a dunk and then just give it one more nice coat and you don't want to keep rubbing if it starts to tack up just back off and you can always come back and fix it once it starts to tack all right so now you could call that done it's beautiful nice matte finish it looks like an oil finish not a film finish or sometimes I'll get one more coat and I'll I'll get my rag in and Rindt and just wring it out really really good just really really good and then I'll just give the surface a light buffing and this will help kind of blend in any inconsistencies and just that's it and back off and then we'll let that dry and that's good to go see you looking that's already about dry you didn't see kind of as the shine goes away it dries so fast okay our next finish is the K M goo which is the four-to-one mineral oil and beeswax so it's four parts beeswax two mineral oil heat it in a chafing dish until it's all melted and mixed together and then let it dry and it creates this like just waxy goo that is just incredible and it doesn't get easier than this what's great about it is you can reapply and reapply and reapply and that's why this is so good for cutting boards if you are somebody who is making cutting boards and selling them at craft shows and Etsy I would make up a huge batch of this and put it in little containers and give it to your customers so that it has your contact info on it so that way when you know four months down the road when they've washed it 20 times and they're like oh this doesn't look like it used to they can contact you say oh yeah just rub that on tell them how to use it gives you another chance to interact with your customers but this stuff's super easy just slop it on rub it in and you just let it sit and let it sit till it's C like it's just not absorbing anymore you can just leave it on there and you know I already did this board recently so once you've let it sit for a while and let the mineral oil really get in there all you want to do is using the same cloth just keep buffing it keep buffing it until you remove kind of any extra and then you just let that wax harden up alright so now I'm going to show you how I put on lacquer and water-based poly there's no difference between this process so I'm just gonna show you lacquer with the spray can I highly suggest you get into HVLP again that video is linked and if you click that little eye in this corner right here the top right hand corner is you're looking at the screen it will have that HVLP video take a look at it it makes a difference it really makes a difference it's a small investment to get a much bigger difference in your woodworking to get into the HVLP stuff highly recommend so the way that I do this this is sanded up to 220 and I just put on my respirator now what's great about lacquer which is a little different than polyurethane is lacquer is self wedding so it's going to rewedding to adhere to the coat before it and so this one you only need to sand once in between coats whereas with polyurethane the only difference is you need to sand between every coat and remember it's gonna raise the grain the first time so just put on a thin coat sand down that grain and then keep going but I do three coats of each when I do them I'll do with lacquer I do two coats sand and then do a final coat with water-based polyurethane i sand between every coat you want to make sure your last coat is your lightest coat you don't want to flood the surface on your last coat it's basically just to fill those scratch marks that you left from sanding between coats so I'm gonna put on my respirator and show you how I do this the important thing is you want to overlap by half so each pass you overlap by half and keep going that way and that'll ensure that your coat is a nice solid coat so now you can see that's laid down perfectly you can tell it's not tacky it's starting to build a little bit of a sheen there so we're just going to give it one more coat a sanding and then a final coat okay now we're done we got a nice satin finish it's nice and smooth it's it feels very very smooth to the touch it's a couple dings in here this was just a piece of scrap wood so I didn't spend a ton of time saying those wouldn't be in a normal project but it just is a great looking finish both water-based satin and lacquer satin some of my favorite finishes for heavy use furniture so one thing I think I've forgot to mention was that if you're gonna use an oil finish which is another kind of finish I really like you know like any kind of teak oil Danish oil you would just wipe it on kind of like the shellac it's really really easy finish to use I don't use it very often just because it doesn't really offer any protection whatsoever but it really is beautiful and it's what some of the real famous older furniture makers would use like if you look up Maloof oil there's a mixture that is really really good I think maker brand simple finish is sort of a variation of that with hardening wax but there's lots of great oil finishes if that's what you're into guys best way to support the channel is head over to the cat smells a store pick up t-shirt dovetail jig or stop block thank you so much for watching stay safe in the shop and we'll see on the next one you

Channel: Jonathan Katz-Moses

Views: 307,155

Rating: 4.9496131 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, clear coat, woodworking projects, using clear coats, applying clear coats, clear coats, non-toxic clear coats, cece caldwell clear coats, wood finishing, clear, woodworking ideas, woodworking plans, diy, woodworking lesson, woodworking course, woodworking tips, woodworking project, easy woodworking project, how to use clear coat, wood, woodworking techniques, easy woodworking, fine woodworking, woodworking tutorial, jonathan katz moses

Id: jZRLZXAPtmI

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2019