Newsletter
December 7 2002

I'm afraid this will be a very short newsletter, as I've had a grandaddy of a cold for several days and it's caused an infection in one of my eyes, so it's difficult to spend much time looking at the screen. The newsletter generally takes several hours of typing and screen staring, so I've mainly gathered up a few things that were close to being done and needed refining.

We'll be back with a big gust of wind next time.

For applying stripper, choose the cheapest brushes you can find. It's best to use new brushes, because there may be teeny tiny flecks of paint or other stuff in a used brush that could cause you a lot of trouble when it might show in the final finish.

Very cheap brushes can be used for staining, since the only real role they play is getting the stain from the can to the surface and working stain into tight places. The crucial part of the staining procedure is wiping the excess stain and getting it even.

When it comes to brushes, think of fussy for the finish.

Choose a brush designed especially for the type of finish you plan to use. The brushes will generally have the information printed on them or their packaging. If the package is sealed so you can't get to the brush, pass it up and go to a brush that you can inspect.

Riffle the bristles and whap them against the palm of your hand, if you have loose bristles in your hand you can figure that you'll have loose bristles in your finish.

Check for flagging. This is one time that split ends are priceless. The tip of the bristles should feel soft and furry. Separate the bristles and inspect them closely. Not all the bristles need to be flagged, but a large percentage should be split at the ends.

The flagging is what holds the product you're spreading and you need a good full brush to flow the finish on nicely.

Printable veneer is a specially treated real wood veneer that you can use in your inkjet printer. Just set your printer for heavy stock or envelopes and put the printable veneer in the paper feed and choose your picture to print.

You can print a family portrait or pictures of ancestors to add as part of your coffee table top or any other table or other surface.

If you have an assortment of tables of different woods you could print a design on the veneer and apply to the tables and tie them together nicely with a common design.

Just think of the convenience of a wall of pictures, in full color, that actually make up the surface of the wall, no more crooked pictures.

This link for (This item has been discontinued since the newsletter came out) opens on the suppliers web site and it has more information and sample pictures of the veneer in use, as well as the printable veneer to purchase.

When you're hanging a picture and have to drive a nail into the wall, put a piece of masking tape where the nail will be driven, in fact another piece crossing the first will make it better. Pound the nail carefully into the intersecting pieces of masking tape and you should have a clean hole rather than a jagged hole around the nail.

Air purifying is a good idea if you do much refinishing, especially at home. There are two main systems for cleaning air. One is by filtration and using HEPA filters which trap particles as small as germs, as well as larger irritating particles from sanding and other activities. If you'd like to learn more about the filtration systems, this link has information about three different systems and has purchase information.

The other system is UV light and ozone. If you've seen the blue lights mounted on walls or sitting on counters at restaurants, bakeries or anywhere else that has food, it's a UV light. Food establishments use them for their germicidal qualities. There's a good explanation of the operation of UV Light and Ozone and links to different purifiers.

We use both types of air cleaners at home, because of allergies.

The gist of the function is that the UV Light creates ozone, in very controled amounts in home units, and the extra atom of oxygen in ozone attaches to dust and other particles making them heavy and they drop to the floor, then when we use the HEPA filter vacuum cleaner, they're all vacuumed up.

If we could stay home all the time we'd probably never have colds, but we'd end up going stir crazy, so a good old cold once in a while is a small price to pay for social activites.

Another bonus of air purification is rarely having to dust the furniture.

I use a larger ozone generator to eliminate odors, for instance a shed that had become musty smelling. I set the ozone generator up inside the shed and turned it up full bore for a couple of days and the shed had a very reasonable odor afterward. If I'd had a bad smelling piece of furniture in the building it would have been freshened too.

If you use ozone in this manner be sure to read all instructions and precautions. Ozone in a small amount is beneficial to allergy sufferers and for general health, but in very large amounts, generally not available in home units, can be deadly to humans and other animals. Always air out a room with a high concentration of ozone before you go in. Ozone at healthy levels is pleasant smelling, kind of like the air after a thunder storm (it's the same stuff, lightning creates ozone). Ozone in high concentrations is kind of acrid smelling and if the smell is so strong that it's unpleasant, there probably isn't enough oxygen to support life.

All the precautions make it kind of scary sounding, but home units are built with safetly features and generally aren't capable of creating an overzealous amount of ozone, so are generally safe.

I'm afraid that these two items fell victim to the sickly eyeball, as both of these features are written fresh just for the newsletter.

Everything should be back to normal by next newsletter time.

Not on your finger, but nails that make boards split. If you have a problem with a board splitting when you drive a nail in it a good distance from the end, inspect the point of the nail. If the point is too sharp it will separate the fibers of the wood and push them away from the sides of the nail causing the wood to split. If you put the point of the nail on a metal or concrete surface and give the head a little tap it will blunt the tip of the nail and the blunted tip should push the wood fibers ahead of it instead of to the side and hopefully will keep from splitting.