I will be finishing a 9′ cherry countertop for an entertainment center and I am looking for a durable, scratch resistant finish. I have typically used a brush-on poly such as defthane, but lately I’ve had mediocre results (the finished product feels grainy). I have yet to make the jump to waterborne polys, so I’m not sure how appropriate it would be for a countertop….any suggestions?
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Replies
I am completing some oak kitchen counters. Due to the location and use, I need a very tough finish, yet still good looking, so I asked Peter Gedrys, who is in the expert section of this site. He said that unless I had the gear to lay down conversion varnish (I don't), a high quality old fashioned varnish would be best, as it would be highly resistant to water, alcohol and cleaning solutions and also easy to repair if necessary. He suggested Behlen's Rock Hard (now that his first McClosky's Gym Seal is out of production). Rock Hard goes on well and is dust-free in a few hours. It is re-coatable in 12 hours.
I will be rubbing my finish out and so must wait for a hard cure. It is about there, two weeks after the final coat was applied. So far I am very satisfied.
Rock Hard has an amber cast. If you don't like the resulting color, you might experiment with tinted shellac under it to offset the amber. I have five coats of slightly tinted blond de-waxed shellac under three coats of Rock Hard. I am getting a very smooth hard finish in a color I like.
Joe
Why not use a wipe on non-poly varnish--10 coats or so. Should be beautiful.
I am a major fan or Waterlox Original for Cherry. I have finished a 7 foot buffet and a 8 foot dining table (among other things) with this and after 10 years it is still great. Coat, rub, coat, rub, coat, rub, coat, rub with rottenstone and parrafin, polish
I'm using the waterlox on cherry for the first time. Any suggestions? Directions call for two coats sealer and two coats finish. I'm going for flat apperance. The finis is sprayed.Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
I generally apply three light coats of the basic Waterlox, then a final coat of whatever (such as the "satin"). Watch your dry/cure times. Under the right conditions, a coat a day is okay: under lesser ones, 2-3 days is going to better. Final cure (95%) takes a week or so (before traffic, scuff, weight, pressure, etc.).
Waterlox works best as a wipe on. Never sprayed it. Needs to get on the pores. I make the first coat 50/50 with mineral spirits and then use it full stength. get that flat appearance by rubbing with pumice and rottenstone on last coat.
I am trying Waterlox also. Brush on and wait 15 minutes and wipe off, several coats. The sheen is very dull. Am I wiping off too soon or too hard. What is your procedure for Waterlox
Waterlox isn't a wipe-on/wipe-off finish. Just wipe-on a very thin coat (I use the heavy duty paper towels sold as "shop towels") and let dry. The gloss builds up as you add more coats, but regular Waterlox "Original" doesn't get past satin/semi-gloss. (There are other high-gloss Waterlox products.)
-Steve
Kind of like not paying your taxes, you get an instant response. Thanks for the info.
Waterlox varnish: Wipe on the first coat, it soaks in. Brush on subsequent coats to build up the film. Beautiful finish. I prefer the gloss finish for the additional coats as it builds up much faster. Buff down with steel wool or whatever if you want a more muted sheen.
Wipe on. Let it dry. Do not wipe off.
madaremax
try all the finishes you want and then try shellac! put them on a test board and try to scratch them.
It will shock you how hard shellac is .. we all know the myths.. I mean fine antiques use shellac because it really brings out the beauty of the wood while never looking plasticy or cheap..
So it must be delicate, Right? Nah! it's the hardest one of those mentioned so far..
It's also the easiest to apply, the safeest (you've been eating shellac on candy and pills all of your life) the quickest to dry, the easiest to repair (so easy in fact that you will deliberately scratch it just to show off)..
Seriously if you get a scratch on it you take a rag dampened with denatured alcohol rub it back and forth for a moment. Say magic words (if children are present) and the scratch disappears! Oh I know water and shellac.. Well guess what, that's pretty well another one of those myths!
Beauty? well antique dealers know how to bring out the beauty in wood and they choose shellac.. does that tell you anything?
Honestly! shellac is so easy a cave man can do it.. 2 hours and a lot of that time is standing around admiring your work waiting for the previous coat to dry so you can add another one.
What's more if you don't like shellac you can wipe it all off in minutes and start from bare wood! Try it, you'll like it!
Frenchy, you just won't give up on nonsense about shellac. I love shellac and use it quite a bit, but it will scratch much more easily than any varnish. It's very hardness makes it more vulnerable to scratching. There are lots of positive qualities to shellac, but resistance to abrasion is not one of them. It's a good choice for lots of things, but not for "durable counter tops."
Go ahead really do the test. Put three or four coats of brushed on varnish (to approach the deep gloss finish generally desired on countertops) and for comparison also apply an equivalent fully filled glossy coating of shellac on a hard maple board. Go to an drafting supply store and obtain a selection of drawing pencil leads in varying hardnesses, say HB to 3H. I guarantee the shellac will scratch with a lower hardness lead than the varnish.
I'm not alone with recognizing the vulnerability to scratching. For example, I quote Bob Flexner, one of the most respected writers on finishing from Understanding Wood Finishing, revised ed., p. 129.
Typical of evaporative finishes, shellac is also easy to repair, rub out, and strip. Also typical of evaporative finishes, however, shellac is not especially durable. It scratches relatively easily, and heat, solvents, acids, and alkalis cause damage fairly easily.
Edited 3/13/2008 9:45 am ET by SteveSchoene
Edited 3/13/2008 9:46 am ET by SteveSchoene
Steve,
I've done the testing and you should too!
My experiance isn't from a book but from actual practical experiance. I don't make a profit from the advice I give. I found something and you seem to refuse to believe that it works. That's OK! I will continue to encourage others to use it and unless you are equally determined that they shouldn't we'll simply have to continue to have the same endless discussion..
Well Frenchy,
I just can't stay out of this any longer.
I came on your wash technique independently while building a block front
(Goddard) chest. I love it. And, I wanted a glass like surface, mostly to see if I could get it, so I flooded the top with about a 3# cut, and then blocked it and polished with Automotive swirl removing compound.
After using it for 3 years I can't find any scratches. Also used shellac on a chest on frame with cabriole legs that my wife loves to bang with vacuum cleaner.. No marks there either.
On our Jatoba floor, finished with 2 coats of tung oil, and 2 coats of poly there are lots of scratches from dogs, and grandchildren's trikes.
So, I say you are exactly correct.
Stef
fatboy,
Thank you, I failed to reply earlier when under attack and I apologize..
Shellac is one of those things which everybody seems to have an opinion on.. If you oppose their viewpoint you are in for an attack..
you can't possibly be right because that would mean that I'm wrong and I'm never wrong.. mentality.
Well I'll admit that some do it diffrant than I suggest . That's OK . A lot of floors are finished with something other than shellac. And that's OK..
Shellac is a wonderful finish and pretty tolerant of a variety of methods so I guess I should be as well.. thanks once again for the kind words..
Frenchy!
Stef,
Shellac is a wonderful, beautiful finish. But unless you have grandchildren riding trikes and dogs running around on the two chests you mentioned I wouldn't think that your shellac vs. poly abrasion resistance test is completely scientific and subjective.
I know Frenchy says his big dog doesn't scratch the floor he finished with shellac. That wouldn't be the first thing he said that isn't... let's just say, grounded rigidly in factuality.
Rob
Rob:
I have about 600 ft of white oak flooring done in shellac. After a coupld of years of high traffic by several children and sadults and a middle-sized dog ( and with no wax or mainetnance) the surface is duller than when it was new, but still not at all unsightly. We get the occasional d scratch, but certainly not from dogs. What gets us is things like baseball cleats with sand in them, or the foot of a chair with a sharp thing stuck in it. In the dining room, where the chairs slide back and forth on the wood two or three times a day, we can see dull wear tracks, but that happened with other finishes, too.
Shellac is much tougher than people tend to think. Nevertheless, I wouldn't use it on a counter that was going to see a lot of varied use. I am making oak kitchen counters right now. Have leveled and colored them with shellac, but am topping with three coats of Rock Hard for the purpose of chemical and alcohol resistance, and greater resistance to hot water.
Joe
Joe,
I love shellac. I use it more than any other finish by a significant margin. I do however understand that any finish has pros and cons. Shellac is tougher than the uninformed may have heard, but it simply is less abrasion resistant than many other finishes.
I have a mid sized mutt and a 120 pound German Shepard Dog, they have both scratched stuff I have finished in shellac with one poor decision involving paw placement. Maybe I should get my flakes from somewhere besides Homestead Finishing. Jeff must be selling poor quality shellac.
Rob
DISCLAIMER: The last two sentences of my post are facetious. Jeff Jewitt sells quality finishing products and is an honest and friendly businessman.
No argument here. Dog claws are less likely to scar up a floor that a three-dimansional surface that they can scrape down. My dog strips good emamel off of outside doors and could certainly damage shellac --but does not do so on floors.
Joe
Joe Sullivan,
Have you considered a wash coat of new shellac for your floor?
New will melt right into the old and bring back all the gloss you've lost.
I agree, but just haven't gotten around to it.
J
How often did you say the dogs and the tricycles were running over that Goddard Chest? :-)John
Then your test must be different than such as these
http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/simmons.htm
How about some pictures of your results? Or perhaps you could describe exactly what you did?
Steve,
I looked carefully to see a shellac coating and the only thing I saw was an sprayed finish presumably from a can and no details about it's thickness or smoothness and which shellac or anything to properly judge it by. Could you post complete information?
I see why you don't like to deal with written material. The film thickness is stated to be betwen 1.0 and 1.5 mils thick, and the last item in the list is Amber (Orange) shellac 1 lb. cut) There is also an areosol shellac. If the thickness are the same, then how it was applied makes no difference. You are grasping at straws. There is only one kind of aerosol shellac available, and that is from Zinsser, and there is only one kind of orange shellac named Amber, and that is also the liquid shellac made by Zinsser.
Edited 3/13/2008 4:14 pm ET by SteveSchoene
Edited 3/13/2008 4:15 pm ET by SteveSchoene
Steve,
My test method is more real world based.. I applied shellac and various other finishes to test boards all treated the same.. (white oak)
I then waited about a month and dragged keys across them with various amounts of pressure.
Scratches which resulted after dented wood were discounted.. (ignored) scratches which peeled off the finish were reason to discard that finish for use in my home.. Among those I refused to test were finishes which required catalized paint.. While I have the equipment (fresh air equipment, masks, and body suits )etc.. I no longer am willing to expose myself or family to the lingering fumes. A near fatal exposure to early versions has taught me to be safe rather than sorry.
My first experiment was with lacquer since I've sprayed so much in my life and I'm vary familar with it's spraying properties.. I liked the idea of lacquer and that was what I expected to use.. Shellac was way down on my trail list. frankly I'd heard all the myths and stories and really didn't expect it was worth my time..
Polyurethanes all were soft, dented, and marked easily .Depending on brand peeled or tore relatively easily..
I was surprised at how easily some of the water based finishes scratched
Spar varnishes even epiphanes marked easily compared to shellac.. (I tried three differant ones..Epiphanes, Interlux, and Helmsmen)
Shellac didn't dent, didn't scratch and didn't peel at all.
All of my interior finishes are shellac or will be shellac..
Frenchy,
So in the real world tests you were unable to scratch shellac at all with a key? That must be some kind of wonder shellac that is only available to Frenchy. Do you get it at your lumber supplier that sells you $10 b/f quality lumber for $0.30 b/f?
Maybe I should just give up and move to Minnesota. Lumber at 1/30 the normal price, shellac finishes are impervious to water, chemicals and scratching, it must be a utopia.
Rob
Steve, that is an interesting article that you cited.http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/simmons.htm As a 17-year veteran of the paint industry, I find two glaring errors in the article:
1. The author defines the unit of film thickness, 1 mil, as a millionth of an inch. Actually one mil = one thousandth of an inch.
2. The pencil hardness technique the author describes is entirely wrong. You don't "make a line about 1/2-inch long" as he stated. The test is properly run with a section of the lead exposed and sanded off squarely at right angles to the length. The pencil is held at 45° and is pushed forward across the surface of the finish in an attempt to gouge the film. In laboratories, a special holder is used to maintain the exact angle and to apply the same amount of pressure on the pencil in each trial.BruceT
Yes, it doesn't meet ASTM D3363, which is as you describe. Clearly the numerical hardnesses may not match, making it no good at all for telling whether a given finish met a certain contract specification. What I think is true is that rank order of the reported results will correlate pretty well with results of a test meeting the standard.
Are you sure about having the same pressure on the pencil? The way I understand it, sufficient pressure has to be added until either the lead crumbles, or the coating is damaged, with the pressure required increasing as you move up the hardness scale.
Can you point me to a table similar to that in the Simmons article but tested under the ASTM proceedures? I would be extremely surprised if varnishes (other than possibly spar which is formulated to be especially flexible) would be shown to scratch more readily than shellac.
Frenchy, you just won't give up on nonsense about shellac.
His record is scratched and keeps following the same groove. Or, as a friend in the Navy used to say: "His butter's done slid off his biscuit".
When I was in the Navy, guys who couldn't get with the program sometimes "fell down a ladder". Many times that made remarkable improvements. Unfortunately, we don't have a boatswain's mate to send to frenchy.
Send 'em to the hole snipes for a BT Punch. Seriously, some of the myths that shellac have grown way out of porportion. Any finish applied to countertops will get scratched, have hot and cold liquids that are acidic and basalic spilled, and be subjected to varying light changes. In my personal experience fesh shellac that I mix from flakes outperforms canned shellac. I know experts say that a can that is 6 months old is still OK, but I have seen the performance suffer. You cant beat the ease of repair.
Edited 3/14/2008 7:32 am ET by Gittercritter
Generaly speaking, forgoing name brands, considered hardwood floor finishes? Seemingly a tough candidate for the wear and tear you want to subject the surface to.
Glen
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