(upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to "The American Woodshop."

I'm Scott Phillips, and as promised, today is all about finishing.

If you want to finish like a pro, this show's for you.

So stay with us.

- [Announcer] "The American Woodshop" with Scott Phillips is brought to you by: - Since 1928, Woodcraft has been providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Pro tools (dramatic music) for tool pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON Tools.

- [Announcer] Woodcraft Magazine.

Projects, plans, and web links designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf's Swedish Silicon Steel band saw blades, and super sharp scroll saw blades.

- [Announcer] A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- Are you ready to make magic?

Well, when it comes to finishing, that's exactly what we're going to do right now.

This is a piece of corkscrew willow, live edge, and I've sanded it thoroughly, tacked it off, it's clean.

And that's a key to great finishing.

You have to sand it well.

And now I'm using perhaps my favorite finish, it's called Arm-R-Seal.

And as I'm bringing that color out of this white piece of wood, look at the figure.

But you can see the right finish really, really makes this wood come alive.

And then, last week what we did was we built this.

Back here.

And it's a combination of corkscrew willow, live edge, walnut, hard maple, corkscrew willow, capper right there, and it's wrapped.

And we're going to use the same finish and brush it out on the inside and on the outside and take a look at that.

Okay, so the finishing touches on this piece are just brushing out the red oak veneer case.

And it's the combination of the species of wood that really makes this piece shine.

And of course that will have to dry and then it gets lightly sanded, no more than a couple minutes to just knock down the fuzz of the first coat.

And when it raises the grain, tack it clean, put on the second coat of finish, and then it's done.

And then I'll brush out this edge, being careful of the drips.

And that is how you can finish just about any project you have.

And this is a good tabletop finish as well.

So that is one for the ages.

Now it's time to head outside and we're going to spray some finishes and some oil and some water-based.

And you'll see magic happen there.

This is called a high volume, low pressure spray system.

When you buy it, it comes with the air supply and basically it puts 90% of the finish on the project.

Doesn't go airborne.

So, well, as radically as just a compressed air sprayer.

Now, whatever you do, always wear an N95 dust mask, safety glasses with side shield, and work in a well-ventilated place.

I'll turn this on, I want you to see the magic of this.

We'll do some spraying on this utility stand and then on this bench.

And this is the outdoor oil, oil-based again.

So let me roll this around to the side and watch what happens.

That's a reclaimed top.

I have it in airbrush mode when that dial is at a 45.

When you put it up and down, it creates that pattern right there.

And when you put it straight up like that, it's a flat pattern.

And you definitely want to do light coats.

I'll do the top and come back to it after that's dry.

Now watch this, this seat's really going to pop.

Uh-oh, I'm running out of finish.

I'll have to recharge it, so let me show you.

Here's how it goes.

Wait until the pressure comes off, release that, unlock this and you never pour any finishes down a drain into the water supply, ever.

If you have extra finish, let it get hard before you throw the can away.

And now what I can do with the outdoor oil, this has been thoroughly stirred, you never shake a finish.

In it goes, like this, and I'm going to need all of it.

That's good.

And some people say you shouldn't use the very bottom of the can on this stuff.

I do.

It's pricey and I've never had problems with it, as long as you stir it well.

So that is done.

Now, this has a number two needle in it.

What's that mean?

Let me show you before we turn it on.

This little adjustment knob right here, this is an important thing for you to understand.

See that spring?

Keep that, that goes on right after the needle goes in.

That's the needle, that's the number two.

They come with a finer point, which is for thinner finishes.

Now, that's tight, you don't want to dimple that.

One, two, two partial turns back, that should be perfect.

Now, let's get to it.

So, it's straight up and down, it's going to give you that flat pattern.

You want to move your whole body with it.

And you want to trigger it off when you're at the end of the run.

That way you don't get a heavier than you want spray.

That's good.

Now, on the elm legs, look at that.

Put it in airbrush mode, that's a diagonal.

And I can also use that along the edge.

And I use the same technique to join the elm legs as these back southern yellow pine legs.

I tenon them the same exact way.

Then the branches, here we go.

I don't want too much on there.

But that gives me exactly the look that I want.

I like the wild colors that come out of it.

And then, here's the walnut tabletop.

Watch this, out of the airbrush mode, into the vertical mode now, like that.

And this is live edge.

And some people go, "Wait a minute, what's this bark?"

That's walnut.

And that's what walnut bark looks like when it's been sanded.

Now, I want to put that in this mode and watch what I do.

On, off.

On, off.

And then, airbrush mode again to do the legs.

So, these are elm that have dried for five years.

Get this all finished out and we'll take the final look.

(airbrushing) Now, we need a piece of plywood and you'll see why in just a second.

Everything's been sprayed to perfection.

That red oak looks really amazing.

And if you do get an overspray situation, you want to get right to it.

The idea is go light, but if you see any drips, any runs, brush it out with an all bristle, natural brush before it gets hard.

That's red oak.

This is the combination of corkscrew willow and a leg that's just not behaving.

And I know from experience, I need to glue that one in, but let me pop that right back in.

And something on design for the seat to be comfortable.

There we go.

That's solid.

This back has to rake or splay back 15 degrees for it to be comfortable to sit in.

And I love these elm legs.

That looks really good.

And then, let's see if this is going to behave.

Look at that walnut top, live edge.

Again, with elm legs.

And you saw me make this on two shows back.

Now, there's one thing you have to do.

Once you spray, you empty the can, and you put a little bit of low-odor mineral spirits in it, and then decant that into the old finish can.

Then, you put fresh low-odor mineral spirits into the spray can.

Let me put that where you can see it.

Lock it back on.

And why are you doing this?

Very important to keep all these parts clean of the finish.

If they dry hard, it can ruin the gun.

Now, this is where you need the piece of plywood.

You turn this on, the air supply.

And with all your safety gear on, I'm spraying outside low-odor mineral spirits.

Okay, I spray it in each one of the three modes.

And that allows me to do the next step.

That cleans all the moving parts, but you still have to take it all apart once the air pressure is off of it.

Use gloves for this part right here.

And you take all the pieces off, and you put that in a plastic bucket with low-odor mineral spirits, and let that soak overnight.

Remove everything.

And keep mineral spirits charged in there, and that way your gun will be clean and good to use in the future.

Now, when it comes to finishing gurus, this is the man.

Okay, Tom Monahan.

And Tom, you've taught me so much over the years.

And what's the hottest new finish that you enjoy using right now?

- Well, I'm going to say it's the hard wax oils, which have kind of come into the States in the last couple decades, maybe.

European, they've been over there for centuries.

So it's a simplistic finish, but it produces a look and feel that you typically don't get from like a varnish or a water-based product.

So this is a perfect piece of walnut, and we'll show you how to work with it.

- Okay, so here are the steps.

But surface prep is key, and we've worked through 100, 150, then 220 grit sandpaper.

And we've cleaned that thoroughly.

This is walnut.

It's a live edge seat.

You'll see one at the end of the show.

- It's perfect.

- Okay, so let's see your voodoo.

- Okay, so the real key with this is just the simplicity of it.

You don't have to, you know, be an artist.

You don't have to use a brush.

It's just, it's a linseed oil polymer wax combination.

And when you mix it up, it looks like linseed oil.

It kind of smells like linseed oil.

And there's two ways of working with the product.

You can use the product by itself, or you can actually use a hardener with it, which kind of catalyzes the oil and wax together.

And that's what we'll do, 'cause that will give you the quickest cure time, but also gives you a little extra durability.

This is a bench seat.

It's going to give you a good scratch resistance, water resistance finish.

And I'm just going to use a plastic spreader, bond or trowel, you can use whatever works well for you, but these seem to work well 'cause they clean up.

And I'm just going to pour some oil on there, which is a lot.

And then I'm just going to use the spreader to kind of trowel it on the wood.

And you can kind of see, it's going to wet itself into the wood and start to develop the color.

Now you can apply it by hand with a cloth if you feel like rubbing it in like a traditional linseed oil finish.

See, I'm going to tell you, I already have more than enough on here.

- Well, one hot tip for everybody.

There are three products you definitely want to be careful with.

Those are linseed oils, tung oils, and Danish oils.

Because if you're using rags and you wad 'em up and throw 'em in a trash can, they can spontaneously combust.

- [Tom] They will!

And so dispose of all finishing rags safely.

Take 'em outside, hang 'em up away from plants, animals.

- I just keep a coffee can or an empty gallon can full of water.

- [Scott] Water and throw it in there.

- [Tom] I throw 'em in there and I seal it up tight and before I toss 'em away, I just let 'em.

So that's how you get it on.

And you can kind of see already how that walnut is accepting that.

This is beautiful right here.

- I'm lovin' this.

- Gorgeous stuff.

- This is my first exposure to it.

I was a little dubious, but I'm lovin' it now because look at that.

- Never, never too old to learn something new.

- That's a fact.

- See, now I've got the oil on and I'm going to let it soak in just a little bit.

See, now I used, I mixed two ounces, I used an ounce, one ounce.

So I'm going to end up with an ounce of extra material.

So if you got a hundred other things you'd like to oil, we could do that later.

- [Scott] So how long do you let this dry before you do the next coat?

- Next coat, because it is an oil base, you treat it just like any other type of an oil-based product we're going to say 12 to 24 hours.

The catalyst will actually make it dry a little faster just because it's causing a chemical reaction with the oil and the wax.

Now, this is where speed and efficiency comes in.

I could hand rub this with a cloth, but I'm just going to take a white, this is just a white polishing pad, like a 3M Scotch-Brite pad.

This is a surf prep pad.

And I put it on a five inch sander.

Going to buff it in.

- Now, as he's buffing that out, Suzy's with Sheryl's right now, Tom's wife, and they're going to give you tips on refinishing doors.

Yeah, looking good.

- Hey Sheryl, welcome to the shop.

- Thanks for having me.

- It's great having you here.

So Sheryl and Tom have been helping us decide on a stain for our doors and trim work in the house.

And through a big selection process, they helped us land on nutmeg, and it's a great neutral color.

I love it.

And it's a gel stain.

And the cool thing is if I decide a little bit later, I can change it, add darker, light, you know, and tone it up.

So it's nice that I'm not totally set on this if I want to add to it, right?

- Right, you can always change it later.

The nice thing about the gel stains is you can layer it.

- Cool, I like that, like that.

All right, so tell us a little bit more about it.

And we've got the wood all prepped, sanded it, got everything off, and we're ready, so.

- The best thing about this product is it is thick.

It's a gel, so it's perfect for woodwork, for doors.

You can even leave your door hanging and do it right on your door.

- Oh, that's nice.

- Because it doesn't drip.

- Very cool, very cool.

- So I'm just going to mix this up a little.

And then we're going to apply it.

And it's an oil-based product, and it is also very low odor.

They use a low odor mineral spirits, which is perfect.

- Yeah, so you can just do it in your house and don't have to worry too much about fumes.

Cool.

- And a lot of people use a bristle brush like this for oil-based products.

I kind of like the polyfoam sponge brushes.

And it's great for getting down in this area here.

So let's, usually what I do is I start on the interior here, 'cause you want to get these panels done.

- Right.

And that sponge, I think, makes it get in there.

- [Sheryl] Oh, it's perfect for these edges.

Just like that.

- And this is just the stain.

We can add the top coat later?

- [Sheryl] Yeah, with an oil-based stain like this, you want to wait a good 24 hours.

And so we're definitely going to wait 'til tomorrow to do the finish on it.

But here we go.

- Oh, I'm liking the color.

- And look at that beautiful color.

And this is a radiata pine, and gel stains work really great on this because they don't penetrate in real heavy, and it'll give it a nice, even look.

And then what I'm using is just a nice cloth rag, and then we're just going to go around this edge.

And I also like to, on this, make sure you do the edge around it first because if there's anything left over, it's going to get darker.

So if you wipe that right away, then you don't have to worry about that.

- [Suzy] I'm really loving the color, though.

- [Sheryl] And then, like, on the edges, you see you got a little buildup there?

You can use these bristle brushes to get that out, which is really, it really helps.

- Yeah, it kind of buffs it.

- Just like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, this color is so nice because it is neutral.

It goes with just about everything.

- [Suzy] So if I decided down the road I wanted to add a different tone or something, so what would the prep process be for that?

- Well, what you'd probably do is just clean it real good with some mineral spirits.

And you could actually put a darker color over it.

- Okay.

- You can't make it lighter.

- Right, obviously, yeah.

- But you can do a little bit darker.

- Yeah, I don't think I'm going to need to.

I'm really liking this.

- Look at that.

- Yeah, beautiful.

- [Sheryl] Look how that makes that grain pop.

- [Suzy] It really does, that's so pretty.

That is great.

- I just want to show you something here.

If, let's say you've got a spot somewhere that you've come across and it doesn't really take evenly or very, not enough, not enough color for you.

- Okay, yeah.

- Basically, you can use that, that bristle brush and take off a little product.

I'll show you on this panel here.

- [Suzy] Oh, cool, so is that kind of a dry brush technique?

- [Sheryl] Right, you just dry brush it on and you can almost just take it off just like that.

You don't even need to wipe it.

- [Suzy] Oh, nice.

Yeah, and that darkens it a little bit.

- [Sheryl] If you wanted a little bit more color or if you, let's say you have a little spot that takes really light and you want to add a little more color, like this piece right here.

You know, let's say you just want a little bit more on there.

Just dry brush it on.

And it just helps it even out.

- Cool, I love good tips like that.

Thank you, that's awesome.

- Tomorrow we could put a second coat on this and it's done.

But what I want you to do is feel it though.

- [Scott] Oh.

- [Tom] See?

- That is smooth.

- That's the wow factor right there, that's the wax.

- [Scott] And again, tell us what this is called.

- This is the hard wax, General Finishes Hard Wax Oil.

And the simplicity of it is what's appealing, I think.

You don't have to be a da Vinci to finish your project.

- Okay, well, one more coat after this dries overnight and that's done.

And speaking of being done, we're about wrapped up for this show, but you need to see this one finish.

We'll get set up to use the Gel Top Coat Satin on this red oak.

Now, surface prep again.

It's thoroughly sanded and cleaned.

This is red oak veneer on MDF, the game table.

So we're using a Gel Top Coat Satin General Finishes.

And what's the base in this?

- So this is basically an alkyd urethane.

It's a wipe-on urethane.

And obviously, the reason you call it a gel is 'cause it's thick.

And that gives you a couple of things to work with.

Our Arm-R-Seal product, which has been around forever, is liquid, very, very thin.

But they're both designed to be wiped on.

What's kind of nice about the gels are you can apply 'em as simple as wiping it on.

And they're designed to go on thin.

But this will produce a hard, durable, water-resistant, chemically-resistant finish.

So it is a top coat.

It's just that it's thick.

- And this is exactly what we're putting on top of the now perfectly colored doors that Cheryl helped us with.

And the cool thing about that is you can actually leave the door on, not recommended, but if you're in a pinch to get it done, you can leave it on and you don't have drips and runs because it's like Vaseline.

It's thick and it stays where you want to buff it.

- No runs.

- No drips, no errors.

- No sags.

- Okay.

Oh yeah.

Now that makes that red oak just pop.

And that's exactly what it needed.

Oh, Tom, my hat's off to you.

Great job.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

- Now you know all the secrets you, too, can become a finishing pro.

Just keep it simple.

And that's it for this week.

Next week, it's on to furniture restoration, all the little tricks.

And I certainly hope that we see you then.

Stay well and get busy in that wood shop.

Boy, you make it so easy.

- [Announcer] Since 1928, Woodcraft has been providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(dramatic music) - [Announcer] Pro tools (dramatic music) for tool pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON Tools.

- [Announcer] Woodcraft Magazine.

Projects, plans, and web links designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf's Swedish Silicon Steel band saw blades, and super sharp scroll saw blades.

- [Announcer] A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information about "The American Woodshop," you can watch free episodes, 24/7 on our website and you can find us on these social media platforms.

(upbeat music)