Hi,We have just bought some furniture for our kids' bedrooms and it isScandinavian pine, fairly light coloured & quite nice. However thesurface is slightly rough and it has a kind of unfinished look.Apparently the pine will deepen in colour with age and look warmer butwe are worried that it is unprotected at the moment. Is it OK to leaveit as is or should we wax it or something before assembling it?There are two wardrobes and three chests of drawers so an answer alongthe lines of "it will be fine just to leave it" would be most welciome:) If we do need to finish it I would rather not use a paint-onvarnish or hard coating - I would incline towards wax, or maybe a verylight stain. Recommendations welcome.Thank you for tolerating my extremely ignorant questions - I am verynew to home decorating and we don't get along too well so far...!Kate

Kate J. asks:Yeah, it needs finishing if you're to have any chance of keeping it clean overthe years, and in the hope it will retain some of its attractiveness.From what it sounds like, you need to--lightly--sand with a 150 or 180 gritpaper then coat with finish. As a quick note, stains are stains, thus arecoloring agents, not complete finishes; wax is used to produce a sheen on asurface and is not any kind of finish.If you really, really want to reduce work, there are several types of stain andpoly in a can. IMO they look awful, and are far more difficult to apply so thatthey cover properly than is a two step system, but you may want to go to yournearest home center (dunno what they call 'em in the UK) and check out thevarious types. You will also run up on spray cans of different finishes. These are fine forsmall objects, but cost the eart for larger items. If you do decide to takethis route, do it OUTDOORS. The mess of overspray plus the aroma of suchfinishes lingers long after the...

Is it necessary to finish raw pine?

Feb 03, 2004 22 Replies

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Young_carpenter 22 years ago

is it all that durable though?

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Charlie Self 22 years ago

Young Carpenter responds:

What does that mean? I don't like combo poly/stain. Check your archives to find out just how much I've said against "ploy." Uh, that's if you mean "poly." If you mean "ploy," we're past talking about woodworking and back at politics.

You do have a real problem with reading things into posts that aren't there. Or is it trying to justify screw-ups you make with anything that comes to mind?

Charlie Self "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." Mark Twain

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Charlie Self 22 years ago

It wouldn't. It was spelled correctly, if you're talking of electric motors and similar devices.

Charlie Self "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." Mark Twain

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