Newsletter
March 29 2003

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Orange Oil

Prelude
Oil and Wax

Satin
Finishing Wax

Wunderfil
Wood Filler

March 29, 2003

Quick tip

If you have an extra section of kitchen cabinet that isn't used much turn it into a bookshelf for your cookbooks. Remove the door and add strips of trim molding around the outside of the opening for a decorative touch and to hide the hinge screw holes. You can add molding to the edges of the shelves to give it a more finished look. You can see some moldings styles and get an idea of prices for your project. Rope, bead or dentil are good for this type of project.

Weather a furniture finish

There's an easy way to make a piece of furniture look like it's very old and maybe has sat outside for a while.

Gather all the small pieces of iron that you can find. Nails work good, but be sure they aren't aluminum, galvanized or coated in some other manner. Screws or the insides of locks that you've saved for who knows why, bailing wire and anything iron works fine. Put the iron pieces in a large glass jar and fill it with vinegar. Put a lid on it and let the iron soak in the vinegar for several days until it's darkish looking.

While you're waiting for the stuff to brew you can prepare the wood for treatment. All of the old finish or paint has to be removed completely.

You can apply your homemade weatherizer with a paintbrush, sponge or cloth, I think a sponge is easiest and best to control the application. Be sure to wear vinyl or nitrile gloves or your hand will smell like a pickle for a while. Depending on which wood you use the concoction will turn the wood to a very mellow light weathered gray to a medium gray and has a distinct appearance of being weathered.

Next you need to neutralize the pickle smell in your piece you're working on. If you can let it sit in the sun for a few hours it will help a lot. Liberal coats of lemon or orange oil will give a much more pleasant scent. Finally, seal it all in and give your works some protection with a clear finish.

Quick tip

If you have a problem with ants in your kitchen or anywhere else and you don't like using toxic chemicals, try mixing 1/3 cup each of honey, sugar and active dry yeast. Put the mixture in a plastic container and put it in the path the ants use. It's a lot safer for pets and children than store bought ant traps.

Hide a particle board table top

Some nice looking end tables and coffee tables have solid wood except for the top, which is particle board and sometimes the surface on the top leaves a lot to be desired. Printed grain patterns don't last very long.

If the top finish has worn through and you don't want to veneer with a wood veneer you can make an interesting appearance by taking naugahide or a less pricey leather appearing vinyl and cut it to the shape and size of the table top and over the edges of the top. Lay it out smooth and use some of the decorative trim molding mentioned above in the kitchen book shelf article and apply it with brads around the edge.

You could also glue the edges and decorate and hold it down with decorative upholstery tacks around the edge.

If the style of the table will permit, pull the vinyl clear under the table and staple or tack it.

Repair broken marble

Marble is very heavy and is rock, but also is very soft and can be worked with wood working tools. A broken marble slab is pretty expensive to have repaired too.

I should mention very first that the highly polished reflective shine on some marble can't be duplicated at home. It takes some pretty expensive equipment and diamond dust, among other things, to achieve the high shine. A repair to marble of this type may not be perfect, but if you've priced the repair and it's too expensive the repair would probably look better than the piece being broken off.

The repair may be noticeable on a less shiny marble too, but is easier to conceal than on the shiny stuff.

You'll need a perfectly flat work surface a little larger than the marble slab. A piece of 3/4 inch plywood on saw horses works well.

Clamps are an absolute must. Pipe clamps are reasonably priced and are sturdy and easy to work with. You buy the clamp ends, then buy threaded pipe the length you need from a plumbing shop. You'll need two clamps, one to clamp the full length of the slab and one to clamp the width.

Marble will generally break along the line of the design in the marble, so the break will be irregular and will be along a variation of colors. The irregular break line will make it easier to get the piece to go back where it's supposed to be and the color variations will make it easier to conceal the repair.

If you have a stone works or cemetery marker business nearby you may be able to buy colored epoxy glue from them. If you do have such a business available, take the smallest piece of marble, if possible, in for a color match.

If you have to buy from a hardware store see if they may have different colors of epoxy glue, if not try for polyurethane glue, you may be able to find it in colors. If you can't find a near color, buy colorless clear epoxy or polyurethane glue.

The glue is gap filling, so you'll need to use care with the amount of glue you use. You need enough to do the glue job, but not so much that it will add so much area that there will be a noticeable jog along the sides of the slab where the two pieces meet.

Make a practice run first and dry fit the broken pieces. Clamp them up so you can tell just where the clamps need to go to be the most effective. Check to be sure that the top is exactly even and flat.

Once the glue and clamps are applied you've got a lifetime repair, so it needs to be as exact as possible, because you won't be able to sand it down to make everything smooth.

Apply glue to both surfaces with a brush so you can be sure that it gets into all the nooks and crannies. Don't apply glue to the top 1/8 inch, you'll need room to do your final blending and repair hiding. The glue may squish up when you tighten the clamps, so keep any excess squished out cleaned up and uses a toothpick to scrape enough glue out of the crack to give you room for the final touches. This is easiest done if you have a helper, so one can do the clamping and squishing while the other does the squish wiping and cleaning.

If the glue is the right color don't scrape any out of the crack, just level it even with the rest of the top as much as you can. Leave a little dip rather than a hump. You can add to the dip if necessary, but it could be very difficult to flatten the hump.

The rest is slow patient work. Leave the repair clamped up for at least 12 hours to let the glue cure well. If you have a clear glue use an artists brush and acrylic paint which is a color as near to the marble as possible and paint inside the repair crack. Let the paint dry completely, then work more of the clear glue into the crack, keeping away from building a hump.

Let everything dry completely then use a paste wax, such as Antiquax rubbing back and forth across the repair with many light applications of wax to fill in any voids, then wax the whole top equally.

You may be able to see where your repair is, but don't tell anybody else and I bet they won't notice it. It won't be quite as perfect as a professional with expensive tools would do, but it's good job and you can be proud of doing it yourself.

Quick tip

Make a paste of salt and lemon juice to polish brass and copper. Apply with a soft cloth and rub. Rinse well and buff with a soft cloth. Apply a coat of lacquer to protect decorative brass and copper.

Strip polyurethane

email question.....

How to remove polyurethane from a wooden table top. We have tried Clean Strip several times with very little result. Do you have any suggestion.Thank you.

Ann

reply.....

Some polyurethane can be the dickens to get to soften up. After polyurethane cures it's actually a sheet of plastic.

I recommend Citristrip Stripper it's real user friendly and safe to use inside. As with all chemicals, be sure you have good ventilation though.

Citristrip has a long open time and if conditions are right it'll work for up to 24 hours. I would suggest applying a coat of stripper and letting it sit for a few hours, then apply another coat of stripper over the first one and cover the table with a plastic drop cloth. Let it sit overnight and try scraping. If the stripper has dried apply another coat and wait an hour and try it. Usually that will do the trick.

Oak chairs

email question.....

Please Help!

I have a set of oak chairs, took off grime etc. withrefinisher, then sanded down to a glass finish.

Now SHOULD Iwould a wood condition
penatrating stain
rub in tung oil finish
I have read that using a penatrating stain you SHOULDnot use tung oil is this true? Also, can the wood condition be used with tung oil?

How to I Maintain that kind offinish?

Thank You for any help you canprovide,

kathy

reply.....

You won't need the wood conditioner.

If you mean an oil stain when you say penetrating stain, oil stain and tung oil are ok to use together, but most oil stains are linseed oil base. There is a tung oil base stain and for a final tung oil finish there is a polymerized tung oil. It's called Chinawood Oil. Chinawood is another name for tung oil, it's use was perfected in China centuries ago. The polymerized tung oil is a little harder, dries faster with more shine than regular tung oil. You can read about polymerizing on our web page

Tung oil finish is easy to repair, just a quick rubbing with 0000 steel wool and another application of tung oil usually takes care of it. If you go over your chairs once a year with 0000 steel wool and apply tung oil the chairs will stay new looking for years.

We don't sell any of the products mentioned, we just give free information. The links go to suppliers that we use and know are honest and reliable.

Quick Tip

Clean up porcelain pulls by sprinkling a small amount of cream of tartar on a damp cloth and rub the porcelain.

Color red

Color has been something of great interest for many centuries. Isaac Newton began studying color in 1666 and contributed much to our knowledge of color with lots of recorded information. Color has been used by other cultures for much longer for various symbols, including red as a color of superiority.

Red is an energy creating and aggressive color. Red clothing makes a person appear to be heavier but, don't wear it with the idea of making yourself look bigger if you have to talk to your neighbor over the back fence about his dog using your yard for it's bathroom. You may look bigger, but you may not get the cooperation from your neighbor that you would like.

Red isn't always associated with aggression, it wears many hats. Red accents are ideal for home decorating and it will immediately draw attention to where it's used.

In Europe, way back when, red was reserved for use by the nobility, a symbol of authority. It is still used quite a bit in that capacity, but a commoner can wear red now too, in most cultures, without fear of losing any body parts.

An interesting aspect of red is that if you add white and make it pink it becomes tranquilizing, exactly the opposite effect of it's original color. In the opposite direction if you make red a dark shade it becomes very sophisticated, still with authority, but not as aggressive as bright red.

One very important contribution to the peace and tranquillity of parents was the introduction of color crayons by Crayola in 1903. Red was one of the original eight colors. Parents could tell by watching their children color if they were dominantly aggressive or passive, but I bet the parents already had that figured out by watching their own sighs, to tell if they were sighs of pleasure or sighs of exasperation.

If you would like to draw attention to a piece of furniture, use some red accents, if your decor will allow it. Use a predominantly red scarf or runner on a buffet that you've just restored or refinished. My choice would be a darker red to give the buffet a deep dominant voice giving people the desire to look at it rather than a bright red with an impression of dancing a jig and, " Hey, I'm over here, look at me".

Red can also be used when you're painting a piece of furniture. Use red as a base coat, then after you apply the top coat, wipe the top color from edges and other strategic points to give an appearance of age and authority and to draw attention. Red can also be used for the top coat with your main accent color in your room as the exposed base coat to tie the red in with the rest of the room.