Canadian wood finishing product source?
Al from Unionville
| Posted in Finishing on
I was wondering if anyone out there could direct me to a Canadian source for wood finishing products such as paste wood/grain filler. I am located in Markham just north of Toronto, and have to believe that there is a hidden gem of a supplier somewhere that will sell small retail quantities. Thanks / Al
Replies
The Circa 1850 line of finishes is a Canadian brand of an outfit called Swing Paints. I don't know if they sell direct or not. Lee Valley has finishing materials.
Steve, thanks for your reply. Regarding LV, they really don't have that much in the way of finishing materials. I was over there again today for other things and they couldn't help me.
I don't know of one with a good selection. LV has cut back to just one. Wood Essence, which supplies things such as shellac flakes and Abralon pads, now carries Bartley wood fillers. I find them irritating -- you can't order online, but send them your phone no. so they can call you back, which they usually forget to do. Richelieu.com has a limited selection of types, but in a fairly wide range of tints. I usually wind up buying from -- yech-- Rona.
Jim
Thanks Jim,
I have been looking around for finishing suppliers for sometime now. My problem was probably increased because I wanted to spray only water borne finishes, and couldn't find a supplier that would sell me less than 5 gals at a time. I have since found a Toronto supplier that will sell clear and tinted water based finishing product 1 gal at a time.
However, just today I was looking at the Target Finishes web site (mfg'r of water based finishes). It turns out that there is a BC based e-com site (waterborne.ca) that sells their products including a clear water based filler. Also, Target has several forums so that I can see the problems and solutions of others.
I'll still have to pay shipping to get from BC to Ontario, but cheaper that from US to Ontario.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Al
If you can find a dealer that sells Becker Acroma products, you will probably be able to buy their excellent waterborne products by the gallon. I've bought waterborne lacquer and poly by the litre in Calgary. Benjamin Moore sels grain filler.
I am in Northern British Columbia and after losing patience with Wood Essence I ordered my Bartley stains direct from McFadden. They bought out Bartley, but still produce the product under the same name. McFadden was very good to deal with and shipped very quickly. Not Canadian, but will ship to Canada.
Brad
Thanks for the tip Brad. I appreciate it / Al
Trying to find Canadian sources for the finishing products mentioned in FWW and other woodworking mags and Web sites is just brutal. Canadian Tire, Rona, Reno-Depot and Building Box all pretty much carry the same general market stuff. It's almost impossible to get a good variety of small quantities of products to conduct tests and find your finishing sweet spots.
If you have Home Depot or Lowes in your area, much as I generally don't like these places, you can get a bit more variety. I think HD must have exclusive Canadian distribution agreements with producers of some finishing products.
Really, mail is your only option: direct from the manufacturers or LV in some cases or some of the larger mail operations.
A good Home Hardware store has plenty of finishing products - - but it must be one of the larger HH stores or a Home Building Products.
I've had good experiences with Wood Essence. Jeff was always very helpful, and when I purchased my first batch of 'basics' (dyes, etc), he spent quite a while on the phone with me making excellent suggestions. He also made recommendations when I emailed him my first order, which I appreciated.
Thanks Lise, I have e-mailed Jeff, but with a little caution because of the other references to Wood Essence in this thread. I appreciate you indicating that Jeff gave you good service. / Al
My experience with Jeff was not too great as I mentioned earlier, but many boast about his service. I called about some Bartley Gel Stain (about the time they were bought out) and he was ordering more stock. It was supposed to be a few weeks until stock was in and he would contact me when it arrived. Never happened, called, no answer, emailed, no repsonse. I get very frustrated with websites that have email contacts but do not monitor them. Many times I use that as a test. No reponse, I go elsewhere. I called McFadden in New York and I had the product within two weeks.
Just my experience.
If that happened to me, I'd go elsewhere as well. I am not a patient person, especially when it comes to customer service type issues. I don't know if I got lucky or you got unlucky. I think I placed 3 orders with Jeff within 2 months, and it was clear sailing. But to tell you the truth, I'm not sure where I would have gone if I got 'unlucky'. I was pleased as pie to find out about his company. I guess it comes back to the original question: what are the alternatives in Canada?
Some have mentioned Home Depot, etc. I don't know if it is just my store, but it seems that they are carrying less finishing products this past year. Let me be clear--they carry more things, but they are all Minwax. Seems if Minwax doesn't make it, HD doesn't carry it. They also have bulls eye shellac in a can, and some sort of oil/varnish mix (Watco, perhaps), but no Tung Oil, no Deftoil, no glaze, among other things I was looking for.
If there is a store in Canada other than Wood Essence that caters to this type of stuff, I'd sure love to know about it.
Very true. From your success and others I may give Jeff another try. I like to support the canadian companies and dont mind paying a bit of a premium to do so. We do not have a lot of options for the specialty items and it is important to support them when we can. HD and the others do not carry the quality products and lord help you if you have a question at one of these stores. I have walked away from several sales assistants when they start reading me the label on the can.
Brad
I can't speak to what kind of guy Jeff is, since I was never fortunate enough to get a reply to either an e-mail or a phone message. Wood Essence is the only place I know of in Canada that sells a variety of shellac flakes now that LV has stopped. In the end I gave up and bought Zinsser Seal Coat -- and it took me days to find a store which carried that. What a hell of a way to run a business. Unfortunately it seems to be all too typically Canadian.
Jim
I hear you on the difficulty finding dewaxed shellac. I phoned many in Edmonton before finally finding a supplier. Many times I heard a long pause on the other end of the phone when I asked for it. Sometimes researching and reading too many books leads to headaches finding products in our country.
If only all could provide the same service as Lee Valley.
Have you a Mohawk store handy?
Jeema, don't think so and there are too many hits when I google them. Do they have a complete name that I could check?
I googled Mohawk Finishing Supplies+OntarioOntario. Try it. and got a link to Vancouver Woodturners, but on the blurb there was mention of them in
http://www.mohawk-finishing.com/dist_lookup.asp
Scroll down the page until you get to the International names.In Canada, 2 of 13 distributors are in Ontario.
QCInspector & jeema: Thank you very much, this was extremely helpful. So helpful that it makes me look lazy, which really wasn't my intent. I really do need to get better at searching. Thanks again / Al
"QCInspector & jeema: Thank you very much, this was extremely helpful. So helpful that it makes me look lazy, which really wasn't my intent. I really do need to get better at searching. Thanks again / Al"You're welcome. You being lazy never entered my mind. Maybe useless. But never lazy! ;-)
Al,
Compared to the Edmonton area, I would have thought you would have all kinds of resources close by.
1. Have you posted a similar inquiry in Canadian Woodworking Magazine forums? You might get better feedback from a more local audience.
2. We have some pretty good support from a variety of Benjamin Moore outlets. They don't all carry the same stock which allows them to spread the slow movers around.
3. Sometimes you just have to go state side which is usually a pleasant experience. We live in global market. Just be sure to use the post office to move goods not the courier companies. UPS and FedEx charge $30-$50 brokerage fees if required. The post office will provide the same service for $8.00 - $10.00. And USPS rates to Canada are 1/3 of the reverse.
Don
Thanks Don, I also thought that Toronto area would have a good variety of local suppliers, and thanks to the knots folks I have located a couple. I agree with the comments re: using US suppliers and couriers; indeed the purpose of my search was to lessen my use of US suppliers that I have been using for several years, only to reduce transportation and related fees.
I have used and I would advise you to try Jeff Richardson at [email protected]. I have used him a few time's and am very happy with his services and products.
He is located at 266 Verbeke Cr. Saskatoon S7K 6G9
Jack
Thank Sparky, indeed I was talking to Jeff yesterday and I agree he is very helpful. Since he now has arrangements so that Target products can be picked up at a sub-distributor of his in Oakville, I can eliminate the shipping charges. Additionally, it would appear that for things like cork blocks, felt blocks, etc Dayvan in Toronto may be a Distributor for Richelieu which is a distributor of Mohawk. Regardless, I think that I can order by e-com from Richelieu.Thanks to the Knots folks I now have several Canadian sources:
1. Yorke Towne in Toronto sells waterbased finishes from ChemCraft and will tint to virtually manufacturers colour code. As a wholesaler they sells by gal's or larger. I have only visited store, don't know if they ship
2. Wood Essence - by e-mail or phone with Oakville pick-up
3. Richelieu - by e-com
4. Dayvan in Toronto- retail store (not yet checked out).
5. LV of course.
6. waterborne.ca out of BC sells Target products but I have only e-mailed with them, not purchased anything.Thanks everyone / Al
Thanks for the summary, Al. Very helpful.
I use a scraper then mix that with my glue from LV and it works purrr-fectly fine. If you add some of your stain (just a tad) then it will colour match spot on.
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