Mindsigh

Varnish a table – with gel varnish

Posted by Jerry on January 14th, 2006 — Posted in Woodwork

I love recycling timber – especially from old brick pallets. Some time ago I built a garden table from pallet timber – you can see the step by step instructions here.

I had finished it in oil as a quick’n’dirty finish as I was in a rush to take it to a folk festival the next day. Months later and several folk festivals later the surface was marked with cooking grease, soil, coffee and soot from cooking pans at the campsite. The poor old thing was beginning to resemble the original timber!

Time to re-finish it – this time with a durable polyurethane varnish. The thing about varnishes is that I’m basically lousy with a brush – everything I paint leaves brush marks, and that is why I mostly use a simple wipe on and sand-in oil finish.

That’s when I heard about a gel varnish (Cabot’s Gel Clear) – it doesn’t work like most finishes – you don’t stir it or shake it or thin it – you just brush it on and each coat is like 10 coats of normal varnish. That sounded like my kind of technology.

So after a thorough sanding to remove the grime, and de-nib the wood grain, I brushed it on and waited for it to set. Well, the grain came up and the brush marks stood out like Saharan sand dunes – I had over-brushed it. So it was back to the internet for answers. That’s when I saw some readers wood projects, and a few talked about the finish as gel varnish wiped on with a rag – just like French polish!

More sanding to remove my disastrous finish, and then a finish sanding to 1500 grit and a wipe with talc to fill the grain, followed by three light coats of gel varnish wiped on with a soft rag – allowing 6 hours in between coats, and given a light sanding between coats with 1200 grit sanding discs on my Triton orbital sanding attachment.

The final coat I applied with a rag and then wiped it over with a fresh rag dipped in turps to ensure a really even coat.

Now this is looking more like it – the white stripe is the reflection of the flouro light – and no brush marks!

Cheers
Jerry

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