Wood Snobbery
What do we do when we aren’t finishing things or testing products and creating content to share? The answer is pretty simple, we are on the road teaching others how to do, well, all of the above really. And many times, it points back to our long held commitment to wood snobbery. Our Prep to […]
Due to the overwhelming response our ipe content has enjoyed on topcoatreview.com, the topic now occupies it’s own chunk of online real estate. If you are a ipe deck owner (at any stage of ownership) in need of professional guidance, we invite you to join us there.
I spend a lot of my time as a professional painter fixing paint problems that were caused by people. Sometimes their choice of paint was a problem. More often, the way they painted was the bigger problem. If you paint at any kind of level, you likely understand that the proof is in the pudding […]
“Fear of Clear” Todd and I frequently team up on wood restoration projects of all flavors – interior and exterior. Sometimes we are presented with antique quality pieces to work with. If clear finish is involved, the project always falls into the category of “fine finishing”, a rather misunderstood term these days. So, we are […]
For a few years now, we have been sharing our tips on ipe deck oil finishing. Rule number 4 discusses the importance of maintaining the ipe deck annually. This picture show’s one of our annual ipe deck oil finish masterpieces, which Todd insists on personally servicing. This one gets inspected and worked as needed in the […]
Exterior Paint Prep with Festool Sanders Today, Todd was gracious enough to let me tag along as the oil finisher on a mahogany deck that he has been carefully cleaning up for a pre-winter maintenance coat in a harsh, lakeside exposure. We chose to use Festool sanders with extraction on this deck, rather than pressure […]
It’s not about just filling a hole, it’s about blending color tones to match the exact grain pattern that the hole is in. This is one of those “icing on the cake”, attention to detail steps in the finishing process on stain and clear grade projects that really shows the skill level and craft of […]
Festool Granat Abrasives Can. No kidding. In mid 2011, we began testing Festool Granat abrasives, which are designed for paint removal and finish sanding. In one of our early tests of Granat, I started with a piece of 1×8 sapele that was primed solid with exterior oil primer. Using an RO150 sander, I stripped the […]
How Oil Finish Looks on Cherry wood. This stair finishing project is from a new construction project we did a few years ago. I had the pleasure of applying clear oil finish to the very curvacious cherry rail system. Cherry continues to be my favorite interior wood species to work with, and there really is nothing […]
Wood finishing is misunderstood. Rightly so. Every species has its own traits that affect product and process to be used on it. The best way to learn about wood is to work with it, on as large a scale as possible. The wood will teach you. Pattern Recognition I remember finishing an antique heart pine floor […]
DT2
Oisin McHale
Robert T. Trautwein PE
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