I was finishing up on a small job and needed to touch up 4 spots about the size of a BB. Because the spots probably would not be noticeable I almost used oil on them instead of my gel varnish. But NOOOOOoooooo I pulled out the gel varnish, opened the can, stuck a q-tip in and applied the varnish to the 4 tiny spots. I returned to the can, put the lid on, turned it upside down to give it a solid slam onto the work bench to seal the lid and force the varnish in side to go to the lid side in the upside down position. I then proceeded to carry the can upside down over to the storage cabinet above my drill press and mortiser and as I reached to put the can in the cabinet I bumped the bottom of the gel varnish can against the cabinet opening and every thing went into slow motion.
The lid popped off and the contents proceeded to empty out, half inside the cabinet, the rest on to the top of my tall wooden tool chest, on top of the mortiser, down the side of the stand that the mortiser and drill press are mounted to and the rest make it to the floor. I had to pull the mortiser fan guard off to get the globs of varnish out of the fan fins also. About 1 hour later and 50 or so acetone soaked paper towels later I finished cleaning up.
Gel varnishes pretty much stay put when they are spilled unlike liquid varnishes. Can you imagine 1/2 quart of liquid varnish emptying out over the same places? ;~)