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This Finish Stinks!

David Heim, contributor

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I've finally completed the joinery on my scrapbook cabinet and I've begun to finish it. The piece is made of mahogany, and I originally thought I'd do an elaborate finish involving pore-filling, staining, topcoating, and rubbing out.

But I changed my mind as soon as I wiped down the piece with mineral spirits to look for stray glue blobs and other imperfections. I liked the way the solvent darkened the pinkish mahogany and made the grain pop. So I began looking for a different finish. Before too long, I'd settled on an oil-varnish mixture that FWW contributing editor Garrett Hack covered in an article in FWW #122.

It's roughly equal parts spar varnish, tung oil, and turpentine. It's giving the wood exactly the look I wanted. It's dope-slap simple to apply. It's driving my coworkers crazy.

"What's that smell?!" demanded one.

"Turpentine," I replied.

"I thought so! I haven't smelled that since high school shop class," he said.

"Stinky stuff," commented another in passing.

"I really can't take the smell of turpentine," said a third. "Why not use mineral spirits?" I apologized to his sinuses.

Fortunately, I put the finish in a screw-top jar. Fortunately, too, the odor will die down eventually. I'm hoping the comments die down, too.

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Comments (2)

Don01 writes: This finish is presented in The Basics of Craftsmanship (1999) as well. Hack does comment that high quality turpentine is getting harder to find. I went and bought a liter of no name turpentine and most of it is still in the container. It absolutely reeks, smell toxic and disgusting. This could be me, as I find a lot of perfume and herbicides quite foul to the nose.
So I use the formula with ultra low odor mineral spirits.
My question would be "What constitutes a high quality turpentine?
Posted: 4:08 pm on November 12th

Wamoo writes: I have been using this type of finish (because it works and is"dope-slap" easy) for abput 10 years. I was introduced to the process by Peter Korn while attending a course at The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. Peter's formula uses mineral spirits and I have nothing but success with it. After seeing the Garrett Hack article I tried switching to turpentine. I have seen no advantage to turpentine in either ease of use or quality of finish. In fact I see two downsides to turpentine. It does have a strong smell and it costs a heck of a lot more than mineral spirits. The one thing I do like about Hack's mixture is the accelerated drying when you add a wheaty flake of Japan dryer.
Posted: 11:04 am on March 19th

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