Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Varathane 66 availability

Watco makes a bunch of finishes. Their furniture oils are great for being resistant to water and alcohol stains from drink glasses, so they are good for tables and bar tops.

The Watco I named works very well on parkay and prefit floors, especially if you follow the WATCO INSTRUCTIONS.

Look in Wooden Boat for some Watco for teak, mahogany, oak.
Look in Fine Woodworking for Watco for furniture.

This thread got me poking around the Internet a little. Happened across Old Masters Exterior Marine Spar Varnish. Data Sheet Phenolic resin and tung oil, 49% solids. Anyone try this? Looks good on paper, I like their tung oil.

Well, as I said in an earlier post, I had great success with Art's Varathane 66 home brew substitute on a small walnut project with a base coat of epoxy. So I decided to go for it with my Sharps stock with a base of Tru-Oil sanded back. The first coat of home brew seemed OK, but the second was still tacky after several hours. So I dumped it and mixed up another batch that is on there now. I had mixed it in a small brown medicine bottle, and it was still pretty full. All I can say is when this stuff goes bad, it goes fast. It's stuff like this that makes me hate stock finishing, even though I have a fair amount of experience. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that mixing up a new batch will do the trick.

Paul

Paul
I suspect one of several things is happening to your finish... Most likely (my WAG anyway) one of your components for the mix was on the shelf too long, or abused (sitting in hot sun for example), before you got it.

It could also be an incompatibility between the driers used in the two finishes. There are lots of tricks used to kick the finishes... and some might not agree with each other.

It could also be you abused the mix some how... Probably should have pointed out that oils should not be shaken if any oxygen has been introduced to the container... Just mix to combine the finishes.
art

Lee
I had missed your post... Thanks for the giggle... Precious advice again.
art

Thanks, Art. I thought I was careful, but I didn't realize that stuff was so sensitive. Didn't know about the shaking. Going to your other theory, I wonder if that stuff isn't compatible with Tru-Oil? I didn't have any problem applying it over epoxy. I also layed a test coat of the new batch on some aluminum foil at the same time I put it on the stock, and it seemed to dry OK.

Paul

Manufacturers' guides to Varathane Floor Finish

http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=66

Finishing A Wood Floor With Oil-Based Polyurethane
http://www.hammerzone.com/archives/flooring/hardwood/urethane/finish.htm

Gawdamighty, that dude's problems with a urethane floor finish make my stock finishing problem seem trivial!

Update: I wiped off the sticky "home brew" with some mineral spirits, and tried some Linspeed over the sanded Tru-Oil base. It seems to have hardened OK.

Verdict: The "home-brewed Varathane 66 substitute" doesn't go well over Tru-Oil. It did work OK over epoxy, quite nicely in fact.

Paul

FWIW, and advertising not withstanding...Varnish is nothing more than paint without a colored pigment added to it. Anyone selling paint that hasn't heard of varnish should probably get in another line of work.

Depending on the intended use, both Varnish and paint can have other additives mixed in designed to meet the specific needs of the job.

Lee
Come on, man! This is what you posted and I responded to: "Watco Penetrating Oil is also used on floors, but dries with more satin luster, so it is used on furniture." You also stated 66 was a floor finish. As I was posting about "Watco Danish oil finish" I linked that one.

Then you argue the point in irrational fashion and link two floor finishes... The Diamond you linked is my favorite floor finish and I did the front half of our house in hickory and used that finish. It is great. It is however not a penetrating oil finish. It is water-based poly with just a tiny bit of oil to help keep the finish flat by lubing the poly as it dries and the oil then cures.

Your second link is an oil-based poly, ala 1960s technology (though greatly improved upon since) and not a penetrating oil finish. I have laid down gallons of it on wood floors. I am intimately familiar with the stuff. It is not what we were talking about.

Now, as I keep telling you, without some semblence of background, Google is not your friend.
art

Paul
That link cracked me up! Spraying alcohol on an entire floor to pick up dust! What ever happened to tack clothes?!?! She got so rummy breathing that stuff she thought her ramble worthy of writing! And posting!
art

Woops, forgot to respond to your real point. I have used Tru-Oil under and over my mixes without issue. I suspect there is some incompatability with a component and would change brands next time.
art

Sitka Deer:

I have heard of using Boiled Linseed Oil on bare wood to 'pop' the grain. I guess this means to enhance the highlights and grain structure of the wood.

Would it be practical to apply a coat of Linseed Oil to the bare wood of a stock, after finish sanding, to make the grain stand out, then after the Linseed Oil dries, finish the stock with several coats of something like Spar varnish or polyurethane?

My concern is, would the Linseed Oil ever dry, and would it, being the first coat, prevent te Varnish or Poly from adhereing to the wood?

Also, do you think that the Linseed Oil might prevent the varnish or poly from drying?

Could you answer the same question, except applying epoxy over the Linseed oil, for a filler or sealer coat?

1234567
Any finish "pops" grain... water and mineral spirits included. The very best time for me when finishing wood is the first time I get to put the finish on it and watch that transformation.

I much prefer epoxy for a base coat so that nothing else interfers with its absorption. No oil seals like epoxy. BLO will eventually cure (polymerize) but it may take a while and may affect top coats if they are oil-based.

Test boards are extremely easy to make and will answer more than the basic questions for you. Finish anything with BLO and compare it to poly straight from the can... Do a sanded slurry finish on an open-grained piece of walnut and do another with a proper sealing job and no sanding slurry.
art

I think the problem is your limited experience monkeying with a few finishes whose chemistry you don't understand. There is a wide world of wood (and metal finishes out there). Just put the word "oil" or "varnish" on the label and that is all a lot of gun nuts think they need to know.

We went through this same dance 2 years ago when I tried to explain the differences in walnuts. No matter that I grew up on a farm that grew 600 acres of walnut and other hardwoods, and that I have been making furniture and gunstocks for 45 years, or that I am a paid consultant on finishes to Remington, Ferrari, Lexus, Cadillac and a bunch of kitchen cabinet and funiture makers like Baker. Don't mind me.

Lee
Did you sneak out of the "home" again? Tried to explain the differences in walnuts?!? Too precious!

Consultant on finishes? Please! With the statements you post? That is so far beyond funny I am nearly speechless!

"English walnut has a thin shelled fruit. It is also found wild in Iran, and is recorded as being cultivated in ancient Persia. The Romans spread walnut trees around Europe, but the English trees had to compete with faster-growing hardwoods like oaks.

French walnut is originally from England.

The American walnut, or black walnut, has a very thick shell on its fruit, and less meat, which is oily and very tasty. The wood is less figured, very dense.

Claro walnut is English walnut, grown in California (the #1 walnut producing state - look on a package in your grocery store.) It's wood color is different than an English walnut grown in the East or South, due to soil.

The Bastogne walnut is a cross between an English and a black walnut, not to produce fruit so much as a tree which grows much faster with very dense wood.

Walnuts trees can be hybrids, crosses, or grafted, which will yield unusual grain and colors. Unfortunately, since a fast-growing tree takes 100 years to mature, it takes several generations of people to learn anything about that."

Above is a C&P of your post where you were squaring all of us away on walnut, as you claimed again here...
http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/920861/page/0/fpart/1

This stuff is too good to make up! Anyone able to run Google can take a quick run through and find a major, glaring error in every paragraph... But you persist! Cracks me right up! I needed the laugh!
art

Really enjoyed,.....no wait,....PROFOUNDLY enjoyed reading this thread.

Thanks, all.

GTC

Me too. Only problem is, all around a hog's rear end is pork, and I STILL don't know where to get the elusive V-66.

Wayne

I agree that this has been an interesting thread. I still find the ideal stock finish to be pretty elusive. Like many of us, I can put a good finish on a stock, maybe even very good, as long as it is rather shiny. What I still can't do, every time, reliably and consistently, is get a uniform, soft finish with that special warm glow that brings out the beauty of the wood. But I still keep trying.

Edited to add: Although I respect Art's knowledge of finishes and their chemistry, all this stuff about shelf life, oxidation in the container, heat contamination, and inter-finish compatibility, makes my head spin.

Peepsight, let us know if you find the elusive Varathane 66,

...or Bigfoot.

Paul

Paul,

Roger the heads-up to the 'fire on a source of the V-66. I'ts kinda like looking for the old Duco airplane cement we all built our first balsa model airplanes with. I suspect that both the Duco and the V-66 met their maker for the same inane reason, but we can still buy pure acetone, methy-ethyl ketone, methylene chloride, etc. Thank the frigging lawyers for the demise of any product that really works.

Wayne