Easy And Nice Finish

Tony, the easiest way is to call the manufacturers number (Usually listed on the can) and ask for a copy of the MSDS (Material Data Safety Sheet), that will contain a complete listing of the ingredients and their approximate volumes. For instance, the on the MinWax tung oil finish MSDS, tung oil is NOT listed as an ingredient, which means that if there is any, it is less than 1% of the mixture.

Terry

I called Minwax, and spoke with a manager. I asked him for the % of tung oil in Minwax Tung Oil, he said in a SA manner that he was not going to give me Minwax's trade secret, so I quit using the stuff. I now mix my own. I use 1/3 polymerized tung oil, 1/3 spar urathene, 1/3 turpentine. I like the finish, and I know the % of tung oil in my finish. Glenn Hodges Nashville, Ga.

That is the nice thing about the MSDS, by law they are required to provide it upon request.

Yep, formulations are protected as trade secrets.

Now, say there was _no_ tung in something which said it contained it, I'm willing to bet some AH would sue for false advertising, or some AG with greater aspirations would file against "big chemical" to gain populist points.

And there's a big difference between stat>

There is the rub George, when I quized MinWax about the no tung oil, they told me the product was Tung oil "FINISH", and there was no claim on the can that it contained Tung oil. According to the MSDS, the product was at least 50% mineral spirits. But they also gave me the name and number of a company that would supply me with actual Tung Oil.

Terry

George wrote:

Smells like it, too. Of course, pure tung is thick and difficult to work with, thus the thinner.

I would not suspect any company to reveal a proprietary formulation to someone who called on the phone. Surprised you would.

Teak oil, baby oil, motor oil, salad oil--the term suggests a use, not an ingredient. Tung oil, walnut oil, linseed oil--the term suggests the source. Everyone knows which is which. To suggest that "tung oil" need not contain the ingredient for which it is named means that the manufacturer must hope you are intending to use it for oiling "tungs." :-)

well, i read that and must have missed the part where they said "tung oil" is one of the ingredients. it does say 'An oil-based finish ' and 'those who admire the natural beauty of wood have relied on tung oil' but i don't see any claim to tung oil as part of the mix. looks like marketing b.s. to me bob

there's one line in there where it says tung oil rather than tung oil finish.

but look, what do you want from minwax, anyhow. they're a sleazy company that sells crappy products. don't buy it....

Firstly, that "(clip)" should have been "Lacquer and Polyurethane don't mix". Let's not give wrong impressions by quoting out of context. Polyurethanes mix quite well and need to be mixed quite often as well.

I don't think the adherence problem with polyurethanes has to do with actual hardness. Sanding (or, more precisely, having a surface where the poly can "grab" onto) is important regardless. Unfortunately, it's not easy to smoothly sand a wet poly surface. You're not gaining anything by recoating poly until it's completely dry because that layer isn't going to bind to the underlayer chemically. A "softer" poly mixture doesn't bind any better than a "harder" mixture from what I've read, heard and experienced myself.

Yep, those stearates are slick. That's kind of the point of being a "Sealer"... it's easier to sand that way. The Urethanes, simply because they bind mechanically, don't get much of a grab on a slick surface. Simply sanding the surface, in this case, properly and smoothly isn't going to do much to help. You've still got those slick stearates laying in there. Now, this isn't to say that you can't make your own or use a "Sealer" just by using a thinned version of the finish you are putting on top. Of course, this isn't really a "Sanding Sealer" either.

True. But we're talking about Polyurethane here. Actually, the original poster said he was using lacquer sealer underneath the poly. I had mentioned the reverse situation and mentioned that "Lacquer binds chemically (with other finishes/paints/itself/etc). " as you mentioned above. Again, as you said above, I've seen acceptable results with very very very light lacquer applications over *some* other finishes. The lacquer thinner will dissolve the underlying finish and bind fairly well. However, in the case of Polyurethane, that's just not the case. They just don't mix and, in the case of lacquer-over-poly, there's no means to bind the two together acceptably. Extremely little chemical or mechanical bonding going on there.

MANY things have changed ... but mainly in the water-based finishing world. Not much is different otherwise. Just new techniques and, perhaps, better understanding of what's going on chemically. If anything, there's been a lot more debunking of myths and "creative marketing" in the past 10 years. So much in the finishing world has been twisted and confused due to marketing and slack use of terms ("sealer" being a huge one). I hate to perpetuate these poor use of terms but not many lurkers would know what was talked about otherwise. I try to use quotes around things to suggest a common (if incorrect) use of that word. Anyway, the tools and techniques to actually discover what's going on in those finishes has become relatively easy and cheap lately and this has lead to the debunking I think.

Frankly, I mix/prepare almost all of the finishes I use on my woodworking and woodturning pieces. I know exactly what's in there and how old it is. I'm not a "one finish" type of person either. I use all kinds of finishes for all kinds of things. I can't proclaim myself an expert in the world of finishing but I've done my fair share of testing, using and royally screwing up that last coat of finish and starting all over!

- Andrew

No, I didn't miss it. It didn't seem consistent given the words just before it. You were implying that the discussion over chemistry of finishes and finish combinations was more important, for those participating in it, than were the original posters' results. I responded to that implication and not the smiley. I didn't want the implication to override the sincere concern of, at least, myself to the original poster.

The testing process that I go through with prepared finishes (sometimes even on my own to see if those results compare with what I KNOW is in there) is different depending on the type of finish it is. But, basically, I throw them in my stills. No, not grandpappy's old mountain corn-mash still down in the valley, although the basics are the same, frankly. What I mean is that I throw a finish into a series of distillation setups that use simple and fractional distillation methods to extract certain substances out of the mixture of ingredients. I can get a very basic idea of the substance by when and how each substance is extracted (by boiling point for instance). From there, I get to better ideas of each substance by running simple tests (ph, indicators, drying times, appearance, etc.) myself. Sometimes, I'll get much much better results by sending the distilled and refined/concentrated substances from the finish mixture to a chem lab. I use the same lab that has been doing the family business water/oil drilling lab work for years. They do the hard work and detailed tests that I couldn't even attempt to do here. I send them the substances in question and maybe some of the possible control substances that I think might be in that mixture so that I can compare the results. I already have most common finishing ingredients already analyzed so I don't have to send those in anymore. I just send in the unknown samples and then compare against the possible known ingredients.

So, to shorten it down (yes, at the end of course!), I do some simple highschool (maybe a couple of college organic just to justify those semesters) chemistry tests here and then I let the chemical experts do their jobs. Then I compare the results of those analysis' to match up what's in there. No sniffing.

- Andrew

"Tony Manella" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@nni.com...