Dan got Rockhard for you
I’ve been preparing to finish my dining room table project — finish in both senses of the word. While I did the coffee table prototype in nothing more than dewaxed garnet shellac, I wasn’t happy with the durability of the final product. I poked around, and discovered Behlen’s Rockhard Table Top Varnish. I gave the folks at Behlen a ring, and they were kind enough to provide me with a gallon of varnish and a quart of reducer. Sorry, no giveaways this time–I’m not shipping flammable materials across state lines no matter how much I love my readers.
In any case, the stuff arrived a few days ago, and I decided to play. A few observations first.
1) This stuff is THICK. We’re talking maple syrup here, although more Aunt Jemima than Grade B.
2) It’s YELLOW. Not “may slightly age and impart a tinge of yellow to your lovely antique” yellow, but yellow yellow. I won’t say it looks like someone took a leak in a gallon can because that would be nasty.
3) It’s STINKY. Varnish is a combination of natural oils, resins, and other smelltastic goodness. I could feel braincells committing harakiri as soon as I opened the thing. Use in a well ventillated place.
My first order of business was to figure out the finishing schedule. I started with the Product Data Sheet–Behlen sent me a copy and gave me permission to reproduce it here.
I’ll share the first of my experiments with you today. Here’s a piece of walnut that’s a cutoff from the table. I put two strips of tape on it–those are the light spots where you can see the natural color of the wood.
The leftmost side is finished with one coat of Rockhard thinned 1:1 with Rockhard Reducer, then two coats of Rockhard with no thinning.
The center is finished with two coats of dewaxed garnet shellac, then one coat of Rockhard thinned 1:1 with Rockhard Reducer, then two coats of Rockhard with no thinning.
The rightmost side is finished by wiping thoroughly with mineral oil, then two coats of dewaxed garnet shellac, then one coat of Rockhard thinned 1:1 with Rockhard Reducer, then two coats of Rockhard with no thinning, then a partridge in a pear tree.
Major caveat: I didn’t do any serious sanding or pore-filling on any of these, so the surface isn’t near as silky smooth as it can be.
I like the rightmost. When oil is applied to walnut, it darkens and deepens it. The Rockhard by itself didn’t penetrate deeply enough, even when thinned 1:1 with oil–that’s why the left side is lighter. The center was sealed by the shellac so that no oil penetrated the wood at all, which is why it’s lightest. On the right, the low-viscosity mineral oil penetrated fully, darkening the wood. Then the shellac sealed it, and finally the rockhard built up a deep finish. That’s going to be the winner.
Oh, and the name isn’t a misnomer. I haven’t done full on testing yet, but this stuff is tough as a goat and it builds a thick coating fast. I’m not worried about my table if this stuff is on top of it.
Things I still need to experiment with:
1) I need to adjust the color just a bit to the red side to it to match the coffee table. The coffee table has a beautiful rose tint to it, because the shellac was applied with a red sock.
2) I might play with getting rid of some of the yellow by adding a tiny bit of contrasting tint (what is that, purple?). This might result in quite the disaster, but that’s never stopped me before.
3) I need to figure out how I’m going to fill the pores. You may not be able to see in the picture, but the surface is far from smooth. I’ll probably do a shellac-pumice filler, but there’s some experimentation here to be done.
In the meantime, I’m pretty psyched about this product. Pick some up next time you’re building furniture that will take some abuse–you’ll thank me for it.
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