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Refinishing: How To Bring Your Woodwork Back To Life

December 9, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

What is woodworking? It is the art of creating fashionable and exquisite furniture. It can be associated with joinery, cabinet-making, carpentry or anything else related to wood. Woodworking requires instruments to mark measure and create the good fashionably and to know the tactics to refinish it.

The aim of refinishing is to use different methods like scratching, shaping and chiseling to bring out the natural grain and lines of the wood adding to its beauty. Due to the methods used for refinishing, the wood is damage so you have to keep in mind few points before undertaking this job.

The method of refinishing requires scratching the wood with either severe force or chemical agents. It is therefore essential you use those methods, which are unharmful for both the wood and your hands. It is better to try out your refinishing method on a scrap wood first to avoid incurring any unchangeable damage to your woodwork. Chemical strippers can make old wood coatings to soften down and prevent harmful lead paint dust from flying in the air where you are working. Therefore, it is much safer than manual strippers are.

Use the citrus-based chemical strippers. Though they work slower than ethylene-chloride ones their odor in not toll taking on the lungs and stays longer without drying up.

Try using carbide stripped two handled scrappers of paint because their replacement is not so expensive and remains sharp for a longer period.

Your work ends with the usage of a steel wool, which removes the adhesives and leftover materials from the wood. Use it after you scrap the wood and apply chemicals to it. Remember keep your steel wools in metal cans and not near direct flames.

Whichever method you choose to refinish your woodwork, be it by force or chemicals and molecules, does it gently. Lot of skill and artistry is involved in woodworking so refinish it without damaging it.

Filed Under: finishing

Painting woodwork in and around your home

December 9, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

There is no rule which says you must paint woodwork white, or strip it, or color it to merge with the walls. In a room whose walls, window frames and doors are in the same neutral color, you could paint the skirting board a clear contrasting color. This will define the line between the floor and walls. Trim colors that contrast with walls and ceilings might suit your style in one room, while a more subtle color change might be right somewhere else in the house.

You can liven up plain, flat walls by adding moldings so as to create panels around the room. For best results, make sure you keep your working area within the proper temperature range recommended for the paint. All interior woodwork that has been stripped, from baseboard to dining room tables, needs to be primed with either a standard acrylic wood primer. After that you can paint on it with oil-based flat eggshell, gloss, or acrylic paints.

Most interior woodwork looks best in an eggshell finish, as high-gloss paint can have a rather bleak, deadening effect. If your plan is to paint walls, ceiling, and trim, then it’s best to get the trim painted first, along with the room’s windows and doors. Paint woodwork in small sections. Keeping a wet edge to avoid lap marks.

A wide range of broken- color effects work well on woodwork, but ideally you should use oil-based paints as latex has little durability on wood. Stains add color to wood while allowing its natural grain pattern to show through. Varnishes are clear finishes that form a tough coating over stain. They are available in a range of finish sheens from satin to high gloss. At the end of a project, combine all of the leftover paint of the same color into as few cans as possible.

Filed Under: finishing

Making Shelves And Larger Projects For Woodworking

December 9, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

I get the question a lot lately about cutting dado’s and grooves for larger projects such as shelves. If you are a beginner woodworker, you spend a lot of time just trying to figure out which tool you need to build the project you are interested in. It’s nice if you have someone there with you to ask your questions to, but it does not always work that way. If you go to a website to purchase the tools, you probably will not be able to speak to someone knowledgeable about how to make a part or cut a certain type of joint. The one question I get asked about a lot pertains to router tables. A lot of people want to use the table to cut the larger grooves to hold the horizontal shelf portion for a book case. Usually these items are longer, averaging about 72 inches in length. Most router tables are only about 30 to 35” long.

The problem you run into is that the project is longer than the table and you cannot support the work piece. This is a common problem, so you’re not alone. Unless you work in a cabinet shop, you are going to have to figure out a way to support your work piece. You can always go out and by a roller stand for the support. I recommend setting up some sort of bench stand. Even boxes that help hold your work piece have worked. The whole idea is to make something work and then take it apart. Again this is very common.

Cutting the grooves is left best to two different tools. The first is the table saw. You really need to have a dado blade set up in the table saw to do a decent job that will not take you all day. The table saw allows you to cut the grooves in one or two passes. Again because the pieces are larger you will have to fashion some sort of support. The other tool you can use is a handheld router. You will need an edge guide for this method. An edge guide is a nice tool that is basically a straight edge with a clamp built into each end. You can even substitute a straight piece of wood if you do not have an edge guide. You will want to install a straight bit into your router and line up the edge of the cutter with a line you have drawn on your project. Next clamp down your edge guide so that your routers base plate will move along the cut line as you have it drawn. It only takes one complete cut before you will be flying through this type of joint. The time is spent in the setup and in figuring out how you want to make the cut. Make sure you only take the stock out in small bites so as not to bog down the router. This is better for the tool and for your router bits.

Filed Under: shelves

Finding The Best Woodworking Contractor For The Job

December 9, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

Employing someone to fix your woodwork is easier than employing a general contractor. It’s simpler than redecorating your house in entirety. Few guidelines are given here on how to employ the most eligible contractor for this work.

You must have a clear idea of what you want and have a clear picture of it in your mind. Making a rough draft or jotting down on a paper what you want can also help. It would enable the contractor to get a clear picture of what you want hence closely replicate it.

Keep your options open and make more than one contractor bid for the contract with their estimates for the job. Avoid bids for Mahogany or Oak as it spoils the whole purpose of the bidding tactile.

Thoroughly investigate about the most promising contractor. Find out about their licenses (whether they conform to the state norms); check the recommendations of their earlier clients, their work statistics and other information’s regarding their personal and criminal and financial ledgers. This would help you get an idea of the results you can expect from their work and the character of the person you will be working with.

Scrutinize the presented estimates carefully and repeatedly until you get a good understanding of it. Do not judge them by the price offers but the structural differences they hold. It may so happen a contractor who charges $50 more than the other can get the work done in less than 8 days.

Signing of a contract is an important step. With it, you formally hire your chosen contractor. So make sure the contract holds the details you mutually agreed upon and pay special attention to the schedule of payment. Keep a copy of it with you if necessary.

From this it emerges that you must hire that contractor with whom you can freely communicate, who values your suggestions and is ready to satisfy your queries. It is essential to remember that you’ll have to make them work on your vision and not make a do with there is. While dealing with them you should be alert and act smartly so that you can hire the best wood contractor.

Filed Under: woodworking

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