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Knowing the Difference …Social Media …Maybe Not

Jul 7, 2016 | Expert's Corner | 0 comments

I get what seems like a gazillion emails, some asking for direction/advice, but it seems now days it’s more from folks who got advice from one of the numerous DIY, Social Media sites or some forum with lots of keyboard experts and they have a mess on their hands. I have to be honest, some of the things they come up with make me cringe, especially when it comes to finishing. It’s unbelievable.

One lady wanted to redo her counter tops so she got some gel stain It wasn’t dark enough so she added some paint, then proceeded to put on 3 coats with a paint brush, let it set up, then put 4 coats of water base poly over it. All in 2 days. After a week or so the “poly” is coming off in sheets, and if she sat a hot pan on it, it melted the rest of the finish. Her question to me: what could she put on them to cure the problem? Now the sad part of this is that she went on a social media site that showed her techniques and how to do it.

There were numerous comments and people were trying the same thing. She never went back and told them it failed. My issue is the poor folks who did the same thing. I mean the photos made it look good, up until it didn’t. When I explained to her she had to strip all that stuff off, and start over, she quickly told me she didn’t think I knew what I was talking about. Sigh!!!

I get tons of this stuff, some are so absurd I don’t answer because it would take so much emailing to answer. Another story I am fond of is the guy who built some solid body guitars out of tiger maple and used mineral oil as the finish. His question to me was “I have about 10 coats on them and they really look great, but after a few weeks they look terrible and I can’t seem to get the high gloss finish I want. “ This was what he was told to use on one of the woodworking forums.

Not sure if that one is as good as the guy who had put 42 coats of thinned boiled linseed oil on a walnut dresser, and he too could not get that hard glossy finish. He tried rubbing it out but it didn’t work. Again, advice from a woodworking forum.