69VIDEO How to Apply Wipe On Poly

So now it's time to finish these treads and we have a number of options

We need to finish them in some way because the bare wood would pick up stains and get dirty and that wouldn't be good

At the other extreme we could be finishing these with regular polyurethane

That gives a lot of protection But the problem is that it's not all that repairable

We could finish them with Tongue oil polymerized tongue oil but that's not quite as durable and not quite as fast drying as

The stuff we're going to use which is minwax wipe-on poly That it works very well. It's a great compromise between

hardening oils and their repairability and regular film forming polyurethane Which is tough, but not all that repairable once wear and tear sets in so here's how I

Like to do this So this is the stuff here it comes in a in a container with just a little hole and I guess the idea is that you'd

You kind of put it on a rag and wipe it on and that works pretty well

But I find that the process works faster if I put some of the product into

Something with a larger mouth something I can get a brush into Which is this clean tomato can here

the idea is that you can Spread the material spread the liquid more quickly with a brush

especially if they're if you're dealing with with trim and molding that has

Intricate profiles routed into it. That's not the case here, but I still like a brush and

I'll show you why You just want to wet the surface the idea with this product is you only allow

What soaks into the wood? To remain and the rest gets rubbed off

Now cherry is as I've said before one of my favorite woods and

The reason is because it turns Such a lovely rich brown. It's actually quite light as cherry goes right now as it always is

when you first started to work it, but in exposure to to light

It gets quite a rich brown color Which can't really be matched with any sort of stain that I've seen

So the surface is wet and my job now is just to wipe off

Pretty much as much as I can I'm not using a whole lot of pressure, but I don't want any liquid

left on the surface As you might imagine With a finish like this it takes a

Few more coats to build up the level of protection That you'd want on something like this. I

Think we'll have to be giving it at least three coats Sanding lightly between coats, and I'll show you that in the future why we need to sand and how we need to stand

But this is Pretty well done. I need to do a little bit more on the top edge

We've got these triangular strips of wood here So that the tread rests on as little as possible

While this stuff is drying This is the back edge of the tread

This is the back edge of the tread down here and That's the edge. We're going to have resting on these triangular strips

Not that it's gonna leave much of a mark Probably wouldn't leave any mark at all, but just in case we want we want to orient that

Mark where it's not going to be seen because it's the back of the tread so

Now wipe on poly like this comes in Satin and gloss finish I

Always prefer the satin I Just like a matte finish whenever I can it shows up imperfections less just looks a little classier

So I'm ready to leave this tread alone and move on to the next one. I'm just going to

Use the light coming through the window to make sure There aren't any areas. I've missed wiping

first on the bottom of the tread And now again on the top now that looks great

So there you have it. This is the first the first stage

in the finishing process