Polyurethane Varnish for wipe on - Advice please

[Moonsafari69]

Has anyone used and had 'good' results with an easily available satin Poly varnish? Ideally looking for something that will be quick drying and will thin down with white spirit for a wipe-on application. I was told Rustins poly would be fine but there's lots of internet feedback suggesting it has a very long drying time. Thanks, Dave.

 

[ED65]

Well I've never had bad results wiping on varnish for what that's worth. Haven't used the Rustin's stuff but I do experience drying times all over the place through the year and between one varnish and another, although everything does dry eventually.

...there's lots of internet feedback suggesting it has a very long drying time.

I think you should leave some room for there being some amount of user variability on that score. Some people will be applying it more thickly than others while thinking they're not, and of course the conditions in one workshop and another can be incredibly different. If one place is damper than another the guy working in it is going to experience much slower drying time than others working in dryer conditions.

If you've bought it already do a couple of tests and if you find it dries more slowly than you'd prefer you can dilute it further because the thinner the application the faster it will dry, and the more dilute the less varnish is being left on the surface.

Alternatively you can wipe off all the excess after application which achieves a similar thing in another way. I'm not a big fan of this as a normal way of working as I think it's too wasteful, but it does ensure good drying time in challenging conditions and would help with a slower-drying varnish too.

 

[Moonsafari69]

Thanks ED, I think the message there is to go buy a tin, thin it down and give it a test. To be fair I think that's what I'll end up doing. I'm a big fan of Osmo generally but I'm looking for a varnish solution that is a tad less expensive and will dry harder. Do you have any 'go-to' brands or maybe brands that you'd avoid? Also, do you thin down with white spirit or do you use something else? Thanks, Dave.

 

[sunnybob]

First, make sure you buy oil based poly. Water based does not like thinners, trust me I know.

Dilute the oil based poly with anything from 25% to 50% thinners (or white spirit).

Wipe on well, even to the point of scrubbing it in.
Then wipe it all off again. The drying time will depend on how much you wipe off. Wipe it almost dry and you can recoat in a few hours. Leave a full coat on and it could be 2 days before its dry.

Brand of poly appears to be immaterial. I buy a different make almost every time due to whats available and whats cheap, and I havent seen a difference yet.

 

[Moonsafari69]

First, make sure you buy oil based poly. Water based does not like thinners, trust me I know.

Dilute the oil based poly with anything from 25% to 50% thinners (or white spirit).

Wipe on well, even to the point of scrubbing it in.
Then wipe it all off again. The drying time will depend on how much you wipe off. Wipe it almost dry and you can recoat in a few hours. Leave a full coat on and it could be 2 days before its dry.

Brand of poly appears to be immaterial. I buy a different make almost every time due to whats available and whats cheap, and I havent seen a difference yet.

Perfect, just what I needed. Thanks sunnybob

 

[Tetsuaiga]

Why do you suggest rubbing off just the first coat? I would do that if it was danish oil or oil alone but not sure why would you for a varnish.

I've used the rustins satin before and drying time seem fine. I think in future though i'll just get the clear stuff and rub it down to satin.

 

[sunnybob]

I wipe off every coat. In my learning curve I once laid on enough poly to make the wood look like it was under glass.
A WEEK later it was still tacky, and when it finally did dry it was so soft the it would hold fingerprints. That one went on the kindling pile.
When handling the object and turning it over a lot its very easy to get blobs hiding in corners unless you wipe all the excess off.
That corner blob dries out to be smack dead centre of your eyeline, the little devil.
3 or 4 or even more very thin coats gives a pretty good finish.

 

[ED65]

I'm a big fan of Osmo generally but I'm looking for a varnish solution that is a tad less expensive and will dry harder.

I'd be the same, I'm much in favour of harder finishes and the excessive price of the Osmo finishes for the amateur puts me off them anyway. Plus I know you can get very similar performance/looks from something you mix up in a clean jam jar in your kitchen :mrgreen:

Do you have any 'go-to' brands or maybe brands that you'd avoid? Also, do you thin down with white spirit or do you use something else?

Like Bob I've had good results with even the cheapest varnishes, including 151 and the house brand in our equivalent of Poundland.

Re. this from Bob, some comments/observations:

Dilute the oil based poly with anything from 25% to 50% thinners (or white spirit).

Wipe on well, even to the point of scrubbing it in.
Then wipe it all off again.

You can thin oil-based varnishes to any degree desired or needed. When making wiping varnish for yourself it is counter-productive to dilute too much, but you can thin to ridiculously high levels and the varnish will still dry hard (despite some persistent myths warning about over-dilution).

In short, any amount of added spirits from 5% to 95% won't affect the ability of the varnish to cure, although of course it can have a direct bearing on drying time.

You can wipe away all excess varnish however it's isn't always necessary, or desirable. Obviously the more you wipe away the more you waste as I refer to above, but also the more you wipe away the more coats you have to apply to get to a given final coat thickness. So despite the seeming advantage of the much faster drying time when you wipe away all or most of the thinned varnish it may actually be a case of one step forward two steps back in certain cases.

You can wipe on and leave it, wipe on and wipe away some excess or wipe away all the excess as you find most useful.

During the winter when drying times are challenging I will tend to thin more and wipe away more excess so that I can more reliably apply a second coat the next day, but if I can leave the piece somewhere out of sight where I'm not tempted to apply the next coat too early I will sometimes wipe on, leave it, and just put it in the spare bedroom for a couple of days until I remember it's there.

 

[sunnybob]

An addit regarding temperatures;
I'm blessed here as for over half the year temps are above 30c. But yes, that does severely shorten drying times.
almost 2 years ago now I had a deadline on a bandsaw box for mid july delivery and I could not get the wipe on to go on properly. Our temps can exceed 40c around this time, never below 35c.
After something like 5 attempts, having had to sand it all off every time, I had to resort to drastic measures.
i had the air con running in a bedroom for half a day to get the temp down to 20c,with the poly and thinners and box in the room all the time, and even then I laid on the floor while applying it to keep it all on the cooler tiles.
A perfect result!

 

[ED65]

Cooling air dehumidifies it, hence the improved result.

 

[JohnPW]

This wiping on and off thing, isn't that to make it easier to apply varnish? If you use a brush, it needs a bit of skill, at least compared with just wiping off.

And, as mentioned, it's slower because you need to apply many more coats. And wasteful.

 

[sunnybob]

Theres that word again.. "skill".
If you are a skilled painter, then theres no real need for wipe on poly.
If like me, youre not allowed a paint brush because the paint magically appears on every surface within 20 foot of the item being painted, then wipe on is brill.

I can get a first class finish with wipe on. NOBODY would want anything I painted except to burn it.
No, not really wasteful, dont forget youve only put a thin film on, the wiping off is just the same as brushing out blobs.

 

[ED65]

This wiping on and off thing, isn't that to make it easier to apply varnish?

Yup.

Just to reiterate as it seems to be needed, it's only wiping off the excess that wastes a little varnish but that's not something that must be done in all cases. When you have good drying conditions it's fine to thin your varnish a little, wipe on and just leave it be. This should be the preferred mode of application when the weather is suitable since it builds the finish fastest.

 

[yetloh]

A word about Osmo of which I am not a fan for furniture although I will happily use it on internal doors and suchlike.

The point about furniture so far as I am concerned is that it is designed to be beautiful both in terms of its design and the way it uses the qualities of the wood it is made from to enhance that beauty. Ordinary oil based polys are completely clear in the tin and that translates into the finish on the wood, so none of the inherent beauty of the wood is diminished by the finish; indeed, the addition of a smooth clear coat on the surface can enhance those qualities by preventing the diffraction of light reflected from the wood by its inherently unsmooth cellular surface structure. Conversely, the opacity of Osmo in the tin translates to the wood by dulling the return of light from the wood surface. This is most apparent on highly lustrous woods such as rippled sycamore but is evident to some degree with any of the hardwoods you would want to use for a really nice piece of furniture. The fact that ordinary polys are both cheaper and more durable is a bonus.

Jim

 

[Tetsuaiga]

I've decided to go with regular clear poly over satin now. I found when wiping the sediment/bead things tended to not get entirely evenly distributed. I believe you can get a satin look by just rubbing the regular stuff with 0000 steel wood and wax.

 

[ED65]

I believe you can get a satin look by just rubbing the regular stuff with 0000 steel wood and wax.

Yup. You don't even need to use the wax. Here it's being used as a lubricant mostly, and IME it's not absolutely necessary but try it both ways and see what you find yourself.

There are a few older methods for creating a lower sheen on a high-gloss finish. In the days of French polish being the pinnacle of finishing prowess rubbing down in various ways with powdered abrasives was the method of choice, usually made into a paste but occasionally used dry.

Obviously this shows us that what we're doing is scratching the surface of the finish to create a lower sheen. The coarser the scratches the more matt the finish. I'm not 100% sure the gradings of steel wool between different makes are exactly equivalent but 0000 steel wool will give a semi-gloss or satin and 000 will typically give you something you'd call matt or semi-matt.

For a satin finish you might like to compare working with magic eraser, which is a very fine-grained abrasive foam. I've just started experimenting with it to matt down finishes because I was running low on 0000 steel wool and I like the effect. They can be used dry (mind the dust, it's a nasal and eye irritant) or lubricated with water or white spirit.

 

[custard]

I've decided to go with regular clear poly over satin now. I found when wiping the sediment/bead things tended to not get entirely evenly distributed. I believe you can get a satin look by just rubbing the regular stuff with 0000 steel wood and wax.

In theory yes, but in practise it's difficult to get a really even and consistent sheen. Furthermore unless you know what you're doing you'll get the reverse of how pieces naturally age, with abrasive matting you'll tend to mat down any arrises or proud sections more than the level areas. That's the exact opposite of how finishes normally mature, so if you fall into that trap then it'll look a bit odd.

Bottom line is that unless you've got some real world finishing experience under your belt don't rely on this method, life's a lot simpler if you use a finish in the first place that naturally delivers the sheen you want.

 

[Moonsafari69]

I've decided to go with regular clear poly over satin now. I found when wiping the sediment/bead things tended to not get entirely evenly distributed. I believe you can get a satin look by just rubbing the regular stuff with 0000 steel wood and wax.

In theory yes, but in practise it's difficult to get a really even and consistent sheen. Furthermore unless you know what you're doing you'll get the reverse of how pieces naturally age, with abrasive matting you'll tend to mat down any arrises or proud sections more than the level areas. That's the exact opposite of how finishes normally mature, so if you fall into that trap then it'll look a bit odd.

Bottom line is that unless you've got some real world finishing experience under your belt don't rely on this method, life's a lot simpler if you use a finish in the first place that naturally delivers the sheen you want.

Custard, reading between them lines, is that as simple as using a satin finish to achieve a satin finish? As an example. Dave.

 

[custard]

I've decided to go with regular clear poly over satin now. I found when wiping the sediment/bead things tended to not get entirely evenly distributed. I believe you can get a satin look by just rubbing the regular stuff with 0000 steel wood and wax.

In theory yes, but in practise it's difficult to get a really even and consistent sheen. Furthermore unless you know what you're doing you'll get the reverse of how pieces naturally age, with abrasive matting you'll tend to mat down any arrises or proud sections more than the level areas. That's the exact opposite of how finishes normally mature, so if you fall into that trap then it'll look a bit odd.

Bottom line is that unless you've got some real world finishing experience under your belt don't rely on this method, life's a lot simpler if you use a finish in the first place that naturally delivers the sheen you want.

Custard, reading between them lines, is that as simple as using a satin finish to achieve a satin finish? As an example. Dave.

That's not a bad strategy!

 

[yetloh]

I use the matting strategy a lot, although mostly with shellac and have not experienced the problems Custard refers to. I like this technique because it enables me to achieve the level of sheen I want. I have pretty much completely abandoned the use of wax because the added sheen it gives will always be transient and I would rather achieve what I am looking for in the finish itself than have to periodically rewax. What's more I know that my daughter (for whom much of my furniture is made) doesn't possess a tin of wax and would certainly not use it if she did.

Jim