My purpose for having this blog is to share knowledge, and help to maintain the knowledge base for hand-tool woodworking. There are many who do this better than I do, but I like to stick my oar in and see if we get anywhere.
The question, though, stems from this: As I looked at the table that I'm refinishing for the Finish Repair Project, I got to thinking of all of the wonderful tangents I could run off in. Scraping begets sharpening scrapers, and where a cabinet scraper works better than a hand scraper, or where a scraper plane trumps them both. I could talk about using lacquer sticks, shellac sticks, or wax sticks for fixing finishes - I could fix a few of the scratches and gouges before I strip the finish, just for the sake of educating myself and others.
Here's the real question: Do the tangents help, or do they cloud the issue? Should I focus on the task at hand and just document the project, and not worry about tangents unless people specifically ask for clarification?
Give me your opinions. Please!
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5 comments:
Being really inexperienced with all things finishing, I would be glad to see most anything. If I had to choose, so as to give you worthwhile feedback, my request would be for more focus on the repair part than the finishing part, if that makes sense. I just think that there's lots of books on finishing, but nowhere near as many on repair and rehab.
You make a good point, there, Geemoney, about the relative lack of books on repair of furniture and finishes. There are books like Bob Flexner's excellent tome that include a chapter directly on the subject, and bits and pieces can be found floating around in the book, but there aren't many books that are focused on repair.
I'll try to go heavy on the repair aspect. This table doesn't really need any structural repair that I've noticed, but I could do work on the finish. Hey, maybe I'll end up stripping the top (which is the most visible) but just touching up the legs (which aren't going to be looked at close up). I'll do some work on it and see how things turn out. If I make a hash of it then I won't have lost much. :)
M.Mike
Take it from someone who has been told to "Get to the point" a lot in his life, stick to the topic at hand. What I find is that it's better for keeping people's attention to stick to the topic now. If something (like sharpening scrapers for example) is complex enough that it requires that much of a tangent to the topic, it deserves its own separate post. Think of it this way, it keeps you with plenty of topic ideas for the next post. And about sharpening those scrapersm what I do is....
Jaime,
It can be done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md7RTJkxUM8&feature=channel_page
I really appreciate comments from my readers. It helps me to keep this going, knowing that somebody is out there reading it. Constructive criticism is great, and praise and accolades are humbly accepted. :) Sometimes, however, comments aren't positive. This happened this morning. The two comments from the poster in question have been deleted. Hopefully I won't have to do anything like that in the future.
M.Mike
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