First Coat of Finish

Dust-free environment. The instructions always say dust-free environment. Who the hell has these? Not me, obviously.

So instead, I swept out my garage the day before, let the dust settle, then brought my shop vac into the garage and gave the coffee table a good once over. Finally, I wiped it down with one of those special dust collector cloths.

I flipped through my copy of Bob Flexner's "Understanding Wood Finishing" book to see if Bob could talk me out of my standard, Minwax Wipe-On Poly varnish. He almost convinced me to use a two-part epoxy resin finish for the top surface. But a brief chat with my brother convinced me that the epoxy resin probably blocked moisure exchange completly, which meant unless I could coat all surfaces and joints with the stuff, I would have to be concerned with some warping some day. In the end, I picked Wipe-On Poly.


The first coat was a pain, which scares me about the rest of the coats I'll have to do. However, it was nice to see the warming effect of the varnish. I still have to put my first coat on the six doors.