Just curious.

I finished putting together a replacement for a coffee table in my front room built from cheap-arse pine, and I was wondering how you guys get around things like working on end-grain and whether varnishing stays tacky a few days after you've applied it, and random boring things like that.

Hi Gopher,it's all in the sanding with end grain and can really be a pain to get right,with some trial and error I'm afraid.To get the colour/shade right with the face side you could maybe practice on an off cut.
There are plenty of tips and tricks online so a little searching will do wonders bud,here are a few links,

http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f8/how-should-you-prep-stain-end-grain-pine-boards-42231/

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/articles/how-to-finish-end-grain/

Varnish shouldn't be tacky after a few days TBH,usually after a couple of hours it should be ready for a fine sanding and to repeat the varnishing.Was it a fresh tin and not an old tin that may have gone off?

Good luck,

Mick.

Yeah, the issues I had with end-grain was that I had to reduce it in height - the tops of the legs were a little proud of the frame that the tabletop sat on. Turns out the best way to do that is to plane it, and my plane was a little dull; something neat I found on the interweb was that if you sanded the edges of the wood so that the end that you want to plane is chamfered or bevelled, you run a much lower chance of splitting wood off the edges. Still hard work, and keeping it flat is also a bit tricky.

The varnish was from a brand new tin; Watery white stuff which I guess is water soluble since you don't need turps to wash the brush, just soapy water.
The finish isn't noticably tacky per sé, but when I put, say, my laptop on it, when I take my laptop off the rubber feet "stick" to the table so you need to pull it off a bit. If you lift off my leather screwdriver pouch, you can hear it "unsticking" from the table.

Is there a wax or oil finish I should put over the varnish, or is it just a case of "it's not properly dry"?

Hi Gopher,
Totally agree with Mick - it's all in the sanding. The more time you spend on the preparation, the better the finish will be.

I've just finished an Oar surround for a new window I put in, and my technique was (got it from the old painter who did the rest of the Oak window surrounds):

Sand as smooth as you can get it.
Give it a coat of Sanding sealer and let dry (this will bring the fibres of the wood up again).
Sand smooth again and repeat the Sanding Sealer. When dry, sand again with steel wool.
Now fill any pin/nail holed with matching filler. When dry smooth off again.
Finally, two coats of clear finishing wax.

Looks beautiful, and people just want to run their hands over it.

BTW I'm not a professional woodworker (ex Aircraft engineer, now computer technician).

Hope this helps,

Andy

That sounds a little strange that it is still tacky days later,should have dried by now so not too sure about that one,there are so many different types of sealers and protection coats you can apply but usually varnish hardens when dry,giving you a nice smooth finish.You could maybe ask at your local hardware shop or the place you bought it for a little advice on the product.

Mick.

Interesting reading on end grain finishes, I am an occasional dabbler at woodworking.

I've found modern paint or varnish that's been eco friendlyfied by using water as a solvent is not as good as the old fashioned poisonous stuff.

is it still tacky allover or just in spots?

I refinished a bar that was given to me by my father in law a couple years back. It was in rough shape, the clear coat was peeling and I had to sand it down to bare wood. I used a rough sanding paper to get the old finish off than gradually changed to finer paper before applying finish. I used steel wool to smooth out the finish before applying polyurethane. After that it was steel wool then polyurethane rinse and repeat until I got the mirror glass finish.

Whats the temperature when your applying the varnish? Are you doing it in a damp place? It shouldn't take more than more than 8 hours to dry usually.

Saying that it's tacky isn't totally correct - if you run a finger over it, it's smooth and with no tackiness. It's just that if you rest something on it, if you leave it there for a little while or apply pressure on it, it kinda sticks to it a bit, as if it has a bit of a static charge. With rubber stubs on the bottom of my laptop, it seems to stick a bit more.

The temp when applying the varnish was probably around 17-18 degrees C; I wouldn't say it was unduly damp, but I was doing most of the finishing work in the evenings, and the temps are starting to come down a bit, so the RH may be around 60%.

The stuff I'm using is supposed to dry in an hour. On the table top, I generally did one side, gave it two hours, turned it over and did the other side, then left it overnight and went through the sand/varnish again in the evening after work.

It's not "still drying" tacky, but anything that's rubber with a bit of weight on it will stick to it if left for a little while.

Oh ok thats a big difference you might just have to add felt feet to the things you put on it, especially if they're leaving a mark.

I should add that nothing sticks to my bar top like you describe but it could be down to the product used. I used Miniwax brand polyurethane.

Fair enough. I don't actually have any idea what kind of varnish this is, other than it's water-based. FYI for you brits, it's Ronseal interior varnish (clear satin).

I've got a feeling that it probably didn't quite cure properly. With that said, I have a table upstairs which was painted black which behaves the same way - get something rubber and press it onto the surface and it will adhere lightly and not come off very gracefully.

For my next little project or anything involving hardwoods, I'll probably wax them instead of varnishing them - only reason I did it this time is because it was pine.

What sort of stuff do you guys make?

The articles from 3instein were very good.

That "stickiness" is called blocking and I suspect something is wrong with the first coat of finish. Read the instructions on the can and apply another coat when conditions are ideal.

As far as wax is concerned, here's a tip I like. Get good woodworker's wax and apply it with a pad of OOOO (finest) steel wool. It will scuff the surface, but it will fill it in with wax and it will appear smooth, but with a satin sheen. It will also knock off any dust nibs in the finish and make it silky smooth.

For the second coat of wax, if you decide you want more gloss, just use a cloth to apply it instead of the steel wool.