Expert's Corner — repair

You should never have runs or sags in your dried finish. The trick to avoiding them is to spot them before the finish dries and remove them with a brush. The way to see runs and sags developing is to look at the surface in a reflected light, as shown in the accompanying picture. You may need to move your head, walk around, or even arrange some special lights other than the overhead lights or the light coming in through a window. Repairing Finishes Once you have spotted the problem, use a brush to brush out the excess finish even...

Especially when spraying finishes, it’s common to get too little finish on the edges of cabinet doors and drawers. If these doors and drawers are installed under a sink in a kitchen or bathroom, splashed water will break through the thin finish, causing it to peel. There’s rarely anything you can do to fix this damage short of stripping and refinishing. So it’s important to get enough finish on the edges to begin with. The most common method of spraying doors and drawers is to lay them flat and spray from above. Typically, the edges are sprayed at a 45°...

It’s common to see old finishes that have bubbled up in areas where they are touched by oily human skin or perspiration. These areas include chair arms and backs and around door and drawer pulls and knobs. The example shown is the crest rail of an old dining chair. Oily skin and perspiration are slightly acidic, and the acid breaks down the finish over many years. If you catch the problem early, you can sometimes sand or steel wool through the deteriorated part at the surface of the finish to reveal good finish underneath. You could then apply another coat...

You may not realize it but Apollo Sprayers, the sponsor of this website, is more responsible for HVLP becoming today’s dominant spray technology than any other spray-gun manufacturer. This is not to say that it wouldn’t have happened anyway, but Apollo did get it started. Spraying technology has been around for over 100 years. It has been based on high-pressure air produced by a compressor. The air is stored in a tank and fed to the spray gun through a hose. The high-pressure air then turns a stream of liquid exiting the spray gun into a fine mist and propels...

The easy way to repair sand- and rub-throughs on sharp edges is with a marker of a similar color to that of the stain used. These markers are widely available. If you sand through an edge between coats of finish, simply color in the sand-throughs and apply another coat of finish, to keep the marker color from being rubbed off. If you rub through an edge on already finished furniture, woodwork or cabinets, it will be more difficult to apply a protective finish after replacing the color. The easiest methods would be to wipe just the edge with wiping varnish,...