Wipe on Poly

loz

Guys,

Anyone know where to buy ( not online ) Wipe on poly ?

Ta

Loz

ennisa

I just use thinned down regular poly. Usually I do a blend of one third boiled linseed oil, one third oil based polyurethane and one third white spirit. I use that as the finish on the top of my workbench and I have used it on an oak book case too. You can obviously make it thicker or thinner to suit your needs. The term wipe on poly is just used to indicate that the finished is thinned enough so that it can be wiped on, I don't think there are any other special properties to it than that. I think the only caveat I found in my original research was to make sure that I chose oil based poly and not water based poly.
Also make sure that you dispose of the rags properly when you are finished. Boiled linseed oil has the potential to spontaneously combust due to an exothermic reaction as it dries. So make sure you let it dry out doors before you chuck it in the bin or leave it lying in a bunch of plane shavings. I think the potential for it to happen is small and probably even smaller as it is not 'pure' boiled linseed oil on the rag but why take the risk, rags are cheap, fires... not so much.

I would highly recommend Bob Flexners book "Understanding wood finishing" it should answer most finishing questions for you.

Hope this helps.

dubtom

Well it helps me,still no idea what poly is though:rolleyes:I'll check that book out.

ennisa

loz,
check out the following link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyurethane#Varnish

basically it is varnish that is made from polyurethane which forms a more robust finish than normal varnish.

Take care