A note that will amuse my sister

[flea]

It turns out that when you sand the finish off a tabletop, and the finish is rather worn polycrylic (= water-based polyurethane, and which, please note, is entirely unsuitable for the finishing of a dining room tabletop to be used & abused by small children, hence the sanding off), as I say, when you sand off the polycrylic the sanding block produces hilarious little sort of noodly things, which turn out to be the polycrylic all rolling up on its plasticky self.

Note the fact that I am doing this project means the weather has turned; we've got lows in the upper 60s at night and highs only in the upper 80s - what passes for fall!

Comments

[veejane]

So I shouldn't use polycrylic on the dining room table, which is theoretically my next project? Although I am not a small child nor expect to host many any time soon. Right now it is (half-stripped) latex over unknown primer.

It hit the 90s today up here, and I varnished in the morning but had everything put away by 10 AM. Just as well, as I was/am feeling feverish. But this means that my clothes will lie in piles somewhere (probably the floor) for at least a whole week, before I can get all the bureau pieces done.

(I ran out of paint, too, so I could theoretically reassemble a bureau with 6 blue drawers and one natural one. But not till the varnish has got a second coat, and hardened.)

[flea]

I would say polycrylic is fine for dressers and the legs of tables and such - but a dining room table, even if not regularly assaulted by two year olds wielding forks, needs a true polyurethane. It is so regularly wiped down, and that alone adds up over the years.