finish on red oak threshold

[krw]

Don't use Thompson's at all, ever. ...for *anything*.

[dpb]

Finish it same as if it were a wood floor -- it is.

Red oak in particular being so porous needs a paste filler/sanding sealer before staining and finishing to fill the open pores.

Use a good quality floor varnish of your choice; polyurethane or no.

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[Uno]

I bought a piece of 6/4 red oak that I'll use for a threshold. I'm matching to wood that has recently been treated with Thompson's water seal.

Do I go with Thompson's on the threshold, or do you want to finish it off differently as it's going to be the thing that everyone steps on.

Thanks for your comment, and cheers,

[Uno]

Why do you say that?

[Uno]

Right. (It sometimes takes me a bit to get my head screwed on the right way.)

What kind of paste filler? Are you my english friend from comp.lang.fortran? If so, you might not know what Lowe's and Home Depot are and might not know our brands.

I shaped it roughly tonight. Gave it a cursory sanding on all visible surfaces. I chucked up the bit for the router and thought i might forge ahead, but I thought/think I want to take some time before I do that.

These clients are out of town now, so I can experiment a little to find best methods before needing to execute.

I'm trained as a union carpenter who now needs to scab because he can't lift a ton of rock every day any more and needs to keep a roof over his head, so they didn't ever teach us anything about paint. I have a simple question.

What makes stain, varnish, and polyurethane different? Which can you mix? What do you have to apply first?

[Ed Pawlowski]

Most of us that have ever used their products think they are crap

[keith]

Actually, crap has a purpose.

[keith]

It doesn't last a year and you can't put anything over it with anything else without a *lot* of work. It's active ingredient is essentially wax. Would you wax exterior wood to protect it?

[George]

Its a poor performing product but has tremendous name recognition because the company has spent a fortune telling everyone how great it is (instead of actually making a good product). Lots of folks need to be told what to buy. Big companies/big box stores have the warchest to do it.

[Airport Shuttle]

I like Sikkens this product has worked well for me.

[Joe]

Years ago Consumer Reports tested the stuff and gave it a 'Not Recommended'. The company never changed anything, just kept bluffing their way through the market; one can only guess why they weren't sued for fraud. But the product containers are very well done. You can likely make an equivalent product yourself with a couple bars of paraffin wax dissolved in a whole lot of paint thinner. Can't imagine why you would want to use it on anything important, though.

Joe

[keith]

Precisely. It doesn't do anything except make it really difficult to put something on the wood that will.

[Uno]

Crap ... I usually know to steer my clients in a better direction.

Sometimes I don't know more than they do on certain topics. If anyone has suggestions for alternatives, I'm all ears.

[dpb]

...

I'm the same dpb but I've no clew why you'd think I'm a Brit...but, I'm in farm country in SW KS far removed from places largest enough to have the Borg's so I've no clue what brands they carry, sorry...

I'd guess anything they have of a recognized manufacturer will be perfectly adequate.

Here's a link that has a decent discussion of the ideas in what you're after...

...

See above article for an adequate description of process.

Stains or dyes are precisely that; colorants for the purpose of adding color. They're not finishes at all. They will be marked as to which topcoatings are compatible over them.

Here's an article on various finishes -- primarily from a woodworkers' viewpoint but the basics of the finishes themselves is no different.

For a threshold, if it's exterior door, I'd use an exterior hard poly varnish that contains UV-resistant agents; for interior I'd use an interior floor varnish.

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[krw]

Any *good* preservative, exterior stain, etc. I've heard the $10/yr/gallon number used for deck preservative.

[dpb]

Uno wrote: ...

OK, so what part of KS are you either in or from?

As to the latter, subtracting about 10 would be closer to the mark...

...

For red oak I'd vehemently disagree w/ that as "best". It's doable but the paste filler will do a better job far quicker followed up by the sanding sealer.

[Uno]

I'm glad to have another kansan to chat with. I also believe you're approximately 73 year old. Am I close on that one?

I'm gonna go with mineral spirits:

I have found that the best thing is to use the finish itself to fill the pores. Take some of the finish you are going to use and reduce it about

25 percent with the proper solvent. If you are using oil based varn. or oil based poly, use mineral spirits.

[Uno]

You have to go through kansas to get from utah to ohio or vice versa. You can go through wyoming, but I decided that was a little too "alpine" for my tastes, with a female co-ed possibly at the wheel.

I treat kansas like iowa: I'm always looking for the best route no one's ever heard of.

ok. they did a stat in c.l.f. about that. I think I was Lane Straatman and 41 years old. You must be approximately 19 years my senior.

I was able to get the surface I needed through routing sanding. Applied "natural" stain. Light sanding and exterior on monday.

Have a nice sabbath.

(Thank God we don't have to work all the time.)

[dpb]

Uno wrote: ...

...

If you're not in a rush to get anywhere, take US 177 from about Manhattan south through the Flint Hills including Cottonwood Falls on to the follow US 160 west along the southern edge that will lead you to the Red Hill country in Barber and Commanche counties...

Particularly recommended in late spring after the burns when the new grass is simply gorgeous...

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[Uno]

I can picture some of this. That's the big reason I stay off the super-dupers--you miss too much.