UV Cure Finishes

I am excited to learn more about UV cured finish systems. We have a large job that requires a UV cured water based clear finish so our shop is investing in a system of lights for our robot and a hand held system for things that can't be finished with a flat line system.

 I am really interested in the Simtec UV cured wood filler. With that product and UV cured finishes I can do a fully filled, high gloss, polished product in ONE DAY! This system is in use for flooring and guitars already. The lights are expensive and confusing with all the different wattage's and wave lengths of UV light.  We are doing some samples now with our coating manufacturer so hopefully I will have some pictures and videos soon.

This is a video from Luthier Tips du Jour 

Matching Color

 One of the most important things required to be a finisher is the ability to make and match your own colors. Depending on someone else has always been a problem for me whenever I have had to do it. I still have the manufacturer tint my solid color finishes but never have them make stains.

 There are many great places to learn color theory these days. Community colleges have great classes on color theory and color mixing. I have to teach some of our newer people how to mix colors in the next few weeks.

 The first thing I will need to do is determine if the new people can even see color properly and there is a great test online that they will be taking. I tried it myself and it is really good. Usually you take the test using colored blocks that you re-arrange but it is pretty expensive. The online test works very well and is free, give it a try for yourself.

Making Wood Work

I have worked at many shops during my career all over the country. Being on the east coast there is the problem of winter. Cold and finish do not mix well. Luckily for me Mark Richey is ahead of the curve when it comes to green thinking. We were the first in the State of Massachusetts to put in a Bio-Mass heating system to use the scrap wood to heat our shop. 

This is our Mawera Biomass furnace

These silos outside Mark Richey Woodworking store sawdust and wood waste 

from the plant and feed them to the Mawera biomass furnace

Here is an article from Woodshop News about our system  

Many shops I have worked for really struggle with the cold weather especially with catalyzed finishes like conversion varnish or pre-cat lacquer. These coatings suffer from cold checking if allowed to get below 60 degrees F for 48 hours after they have been sprayed. The cold stops the chemical reaction and the finish can shatter. The bad thing is it can happen 6 months to a year later. 

Since we have added automation our shop uses 2K urethane exclusively.

Our electricity also is manufactured on site with our wind turbine.

Here is our owner Mark Richey cleaning the blades on the turbine last summer.

Mark is a renowned climber and likes using his skills whenever possible.

The Flip Side

I like to finish the back side of my samples just as nice as the front. Usually there isn't a lot of time when making samples so I have to be able to do the back fast and still have it look good. On high end jobs I like to use a textured urethane finish. When the client is looking at the front the back feels different and they turn it over. Now they see our company logo. This isn't a big deal on the original job but samples have a life of their own after a job is completed. We have got many jobs off of a finish sample from an earlier job.

The technique for a textured finish is really simple and it is very fast as well. Usually the sample has been primed front and back so the white primer can be used as the base color. I like to use a low sheen for the base usually and a little higher sheen for the texture, just to make it pop.

 For the small texture I use the standard 1.3 fluid tip, turn the air pressure on my gravity cup almost all the way down and just let the speckles hit the sample. For the larger textures like the water drops, I use my 2.8 tip and un-thinned gloss urethane. Here are a few examples:

White primer with black texture

White primer with gloss white texture

Water drop texture

Close up

The range of possible textures is almost unlimited and it is also 

a good way to use up paint colors from previous jobs