Lawrence-McFadden

[Dr. Deb]

A couple of you gave me some advice on McFadden gel finish. Would you be so kind as to repeat the advice?

Thanks

Deb

[Leon]

I think it was only me. ;~)

Wipe it on with an old t-shirt or white cotton rag, wipe it off with an old cotton rag.

Basically wipe the gel on in a about a square foot area and then "immediately" wipe it off with the clean rag. Then immediately move on to the adjacent area and repeat. If you wait too long to wipe off the excess the removal rag will begin to drag and stick. IMHO you cannot remove the excess too quickly. In the event that you do leave the varnish on too long before removing the excess simply reapply more varnish in that spot and wipe off. Practice on small pieces of wood, 1x4's are great for practice. Typically you will need to apply double the normal amount of coats that you usually put down but after the first coat this process goes quickly. You "do not" need to sand between coats and dust is not a concern as the surface is dry to the touch in 5-10 minutes, depending on temp and humidity. Typically you can reapply a new coat in 4 to 6 hours. Your build you finish surface by applying several thin coats.

Once the rag that you use for wiping down the excess becomes sticky and a bit saturated with the excess varnish replace it as it will begin to cause drag and stick problems. Often you can use that old wiping rag for applying the successive coats of varnish. My wiping rags are usually about 1.5-2 square feet in size and the application rag is about 1/3 that size. With practice you will learn to put the right amount of varnish down so that your wiping rag will normally last for the whole single coat application.

[Dr. Deb]

It was, I was fortunate enough to find it on another computer that had not updated the UseGroup. But thanks again.

We nearly finished the humidor yesterday and will put the finishing touches on it Sunday afternoon, late. It is looking pretty good and of course the Spanish Cedar smells wonderful. I will try to get him to snap a couple of pictures of it before he FexEx's it to Iraq.

Thanks Again.

Deb