0:00
In this video, I want to give you an overview of what I call the basic urethane finish
0:07
Here's an example of it here. And it's essentially it's a clear, coated finish
0:14
There's no color added. This is a little bit more yellow than the wood originally was
0:20
and that's just because urethane kind of yellows things a little bit, almost incidentally
0:25
But essentially the process begins with a bare piece of wood like this
0:33
Step number one, and I'm going to go into all of this in detail later. Step number one is sanding
0:39
And you can see by looking at these two pieces of wood, this is a sanded piece
0:47
By the way, this is just construction-grade spruce. Nothing fancy about this wood
0:51
You don't need fancy wood in order to get a fancy. nice finish. So nice and smooth. This one feels smooth. It looks smooth. Most people would
1:02
look at that and say, yeah, I'm ready to start finishing that. But actually you're not
1:07
And if you look closely with shallow angle of light shining over the surface, you can see lots and lots of defects
1:15
So sanding, step one. Step two is you need to choose the kind of urethane you're going to use
1:24
Now, urethane is a kind of a varnish in a sense. Varnish is a very broad term
1:30
It basically just means a clear sealer that sits on top of the wood
1:34
So it doesn't just soak in. It actually forms a protective film on the surface And urethane comes in two different basic types
1:47
Water-based, it's by far the most common. But it's actually harder to get a good water-based urethane finish
1:57
than it is to use oil-based finishes, and that's because water-based finishes dry so quickly
2:05
And that can be a challenge. It's a challenge that can be overcome though, and I'll be talking about that in a lot more detail later
2:13
If you're applying water-based urethane, it's best to do it with a foam applicator like this
2:20
And I'll show you how this works in a little while. If you're using oil-based urethane, then you're going to want to use some sort of a brush, natural bristle brush
2:30
So pure bristle. Bristle actually means pig hair. So these grow out of a pig at one time and they're made into a brush
2:41
Same sort of thing here. If you're getting a brush, pay attention to what it's made out of
2:47
Synthetic bristle brushes or the foam applicators. That's for water based. And for oil based, you use a bristle brush, so a natural bristle brush
2:58
And it usually says right on the package. So you know what to do
3:03
You'll see these things in action quite a bit more later. So we've got our first coat of urethane on, on this wood that was smooth
3:14
What you're going to notice, and you always notice this, is that the wood feels a whole lot rougher after that first coat of urethane dries And the reason for that is because no matter how smooth wood is after sanding
3:28
there are fibers of the wood that are lying down on the surface and they feel smooth to your hand
3:33
But when you put any kind of a finishing liquid, especially a water-based finishing liquid
3:39
those fibers soak up the water or the finish, and they swell, and then they tend to stand upright
3:46
and then harden in that way. Now, you're not going to see any of that, of course
3:51
This is microscopic I'm talking about, but you can certainly feel it. So that's why part of the process
3:57
of the basic urethane finish is sanding, especially after the first coat
4:03
because that's when you're going to have the most sort of five o'clock shadow roughness kicking in
4:09
I do like to sand between every other coat, except the last one
4:14
some surface fibers still might stand up but after the first coat dries and you sand
4:21
then that second coat the bumpiness that might be there is more to do with perhaps some
4:27
dust that is settled from the air or something like that you're not going to get the same
4:31
problem with the standing up fiber business but it still pays to sand lightly after each coat
4:38
and to vacuum very important it doesn't matter what kind of vacuum you use
4:44
But you really need a surgically clean surface, as clean as you can possibly get it
4:50
within a normal atmosphere, like a workshop or a garage or a basement, or even in the middle of your house
4:55
So vacuuming, very important. And for the basic urethane finish you gonna wanna put on at least three coats I would recommend four if it an environment where you going to run into some water maybe kitchen cabinet bathroom cabinet something like that
5:11
Another reason to use more than three coats is because of a process called buffing
5:18
Now, buffing is where you take a quite good urethane finish, something like this
5:23
and you elevate it to a really high quality level, so much so
5:29
that it feels like glass using a process of finely abrading that surface
5:35
So buffing that surface. You need to have a sufficient film thickness for that to happen
5:40
And that's why I recommend four coats for buffing. But you don't have to remember any of this
5:45
As I said, this is an overview. We're going to be going into minute detail. So essentially, the first time you try this, if you follow my methods
5:53
you will get excellent results that look and feel just wonderfully smooth
5:59
this. So we're going to make that happen with these with some some test
6:03
blanks as we go through the different processes but that's the basic
6:07
erythane finish and you know if I had to recommend just one finish for you to
6:12
master and to apply to all of your wood finishing needs this would be it. It's
6:18
durable enough that it can protect wood from just about the sort of the
6:24
wettiest nastiest circumstances you're likely to run into indoors but it also works really well. It works beautifully. There are other methods that I'm going to be talking about
6:35
easier to apply than this, but maybe not quite as durable. So lots to think about, but let's get busy studying the basic urethane finish
