wax question for custard and others

[memzey]

Well bob Sera’s put her foot down and we are going to Cyprus again. My suggestion of Reykjavík garnered zero support. Let’s see if there is an alternative formulation we can come up with for me to bring you this year. I can try a batch of 50/50 carnauba and MC wax as mentioned above but instinct suggests that will be bloody hard to apply. I’m open to other recipes that might be Cyprus-proof!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I've turps/ beeswax, turps/ m/c, turps/canauba, turps carnauba and m/c and there is no noticeable difference in their use. The harder wax takes longer and more turps, that's all. Maybe I make mine a lot thinner than you make yours.

 

[CHJ]

…….
I have had major problems with it and after talking to memzey at length about procedures and times, and at his suggestion, I'm throwing this question open to all who use wax as a final coating.
….

Why don't you try applying Carnauba or Microcrystalline wax via a buffing wheel.

The wheel friction does the melting and deposits an evenly distributed wax coating.

The gloss level achievable is high with the minimum of personal physical effort.

Here's a link to a demonstration pamphlet (Formatted for double sided printing on A4) just read in page order if you can't print double sided.

If you don't have a lathe perhaps you can rig up a Mop Spindle using a spare motor and suitable support.

 

[sunnybob]

chas, dont have a lathe, buffing wheel or anything else in that line. The problem with my boxes is that they arent round,or even flat. I have to get wax into tight odd shaped corners, even square corners, where any kind of mop is very difficult to use. But we still come back to the question... Once that micro crystaline wax is applied, will it stay hard when the piece is kept at 36c for 6 months?

I've just had to adjust the thermostatic shower tap, the cold water in to the house is now 32c :shock: and the stat cant regulate the hot water low enough to give me anything less than 38c. Sometimes you just need a cold shower :shock: :shock: :lol:

Memzey, good news that youre coming back. You know hot is good really, dont you? Think of all that vitamin D you'll be soaking up.
To be honest, dont load your case down with more wax, I'm convinced it wont work here. Remember that wood work shop in Girne? when I asked him what else he used apart from polyeurethane he gave me a blank look. Now I realise the locals know what works and what doesnt. 8) 8)

 

[memzey]

Ah the locals. Don’t you just love em? Why bother with investigating what else might work when there are kebabs to eat, coffees to drink and fags to smoke? I’m going to try another recipe, this time with MC instead of beeswax and a splash more turps to see if that helps. It would bug me something terrible if I didn’t give it a go.

 

[sunnybob]

If you consider poly is a relatively new product, what did the locals use before?
If what they used before was rubbish and they grabbed poly eagerly, then who am I to try to reinvent the wheel? (hammer) (hammer) :roll: .

My poly does work as long as I put it all in the fridge overnight and do it first thing before the temp gets too high, so I shall stick with that. But i think its my turn to buy the efes anyway. 8) 8)

 

[memzey]

Sounds good. We nearly took a place in Famagusta this year but in the end went for something in Girne again.

Lots of old furniture in Cyprus seems to be finished with varnish of some sort or other but I question how much of it was actually made here. Anything from the past 100 years or so is as likely to come the UK as anywhere and locally made furniture before that may not of had any kind of finish at all. I’ll do some digging when I’m over to try and find out - this has piqued my interest!

 

[sunnybob]

as you know, I have struggled to find any finishing materials here. BLO, shellac, all get the blank stare and Cyprus shrug.

Only one large superstore in my area stocks the Liberon danish and finishing oil and black bison wax (which is always melted when I open the tin).
I only know of 1 Cypriot woodworking craftsman but he is in Limassol and I'm not due to go back there till winter, and his english is not good enough for a telephone inquiry (of course, my greek ends after "2 beers and a packet of crisps please").
:roll: :roll: 8) 8)

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I feel for you - I have the same problem here in sunny Greece: hardware shops are a strange and complicated experience, full of foreign products and peculiar customs. Nothing is on display,and you have to ask for the right thing, in the local vernacular. It's all very "Four candles, please".

For example - I bought some rope today. The nice man didn't ask me how long a length of rope I wanted - he asked me how many kilos of rope I wanted. I said two lengths of 15 metres; how much will it be? The answer " I don't know - how heavy is 15 metres?". And so it goes on. I once asked for half a kilo of finger-nails (Greek has a different word for finger-nail, as opposed to iron nail - who knew?). Same shop, I got confused with the word for screws, and asked for a box of goats instead. We don't go in to that shop any more - it's just easier that way.

I have used a polyurethane "varnish" that comes in two cans; one is the goop, and the other is a hardener, so it is some kind of of hard, clear epoxy. Comes as either satin or "shiny". The manufacturer name is "Vernilac". Of course, their website doesn't have any info on the product I'm talking about - just lots of paint. https://www.vernilac.gr

Will investigate further if required, as I am going into town tomorrow - I don't know if Greece and Cyprus have the same products - most of the stuff here is Durostick (https://www.durostick.gr/en).

I hope some of this has helped - how is your Greek? I am tolerably fluent, if you need any assistance. Only 37 degrees today -wooly pully weather ;-)

 

[Trevanion]

Ever thought about buying some shellac flakes whilst you're over here Bob or get someone to send them out for you? The flakes would last indefinitely instead of having the pre-made polish go off in the container as I would imagine it would in the Cypriot heat. All you would have to do is mix up some flakes with a bit of methylated spirit and you've got a very good, usable finish. It takes a lot of practice to get good at shellac finishing but the results are outstanding on even rudimentary pieces.

I've always said; A good finish will make a bad piece look good, a bad finish will make a good piece look bad, a good finish will make a good piece into art.

 

[sunnybob]

I have (at Memzey's insistence) just tried shellac and am very impressed with it.
Of course I had to order it from the UK and it took 4 shop assistants blank looks before I found a girl who had "heard" of meths (this in the DULUX paint shop). She had to make phone calls and order 2 litres minimum from the main distributor 60 miles away.
But the good news is that the shellac doesnt dry out! Mixed in a sealed jam jar and I used every last drop over a month with no wastage.

My Greek is non existant, but not due to lack of trying. I worked here for 6 years for a Cypriot company, and everyone spoke english to me because it was easier than them trying to teach me Greek. We went to government night school, and the class folded because there was a room full of English old people, trying to learn conversation greek, from a Higher education examination book. By happenstance, even the greeks who live nearby are all refugees or children of refugees from the 70's who went to England and most of them have higher English qualifications than I do.
You do realise that Greek, and Cypriot are two languages dont you? Many times when I was working with the locals I would ask my assistant what someone had said and the reply would be "I dont understand him, he's a greek silly person" :roll:

In normal day to day life here there is no language barrier. English is the second language and you need to go to small villages or very poor areas to NOT find someone who speaks English. Even the road signs are in both languages and we drive on the correct side of the road too.

I did pick up the numbers though, I can count all the way up to 1,000 but the word for that seems to be different every time I ask someone to pronounce it slowly.
Never heard of those two makes, there is a big paint company on island called Pelletico and thats whats in most shops.
We're running at 32-38c this month, but humidity is much higher than normal making any job indoors unpleasant.

But with all this seeming moaning about certain products, I'm still here for the long haul 8) 8) , only major illness would make me return to the UK, and even that worry is receeding as Cyprus is just implementing a UK style NHS. =D> =D>

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Greece and Cyprus have an interesting not-quite-joined-up history - the assumption over here is that Cyprus is completely Greek, but there was an administrative error with the paperwork.

I have never been to Cyprus, so I don't know how Greek it is in terms of products available and who sells what, and where. However, if by "meths" you mean methylated spirits, you should be able to buy that in a chemist. They do cheap "alcohol", which is blue meths, and an expensive clear, 99% version, which is probably ethyl alcohol as opposed to methyl alcohol (and won't make you go blind if you drink it). At least, that is in my local pharmakio, anyway. It also has one of the more unpronounceable names: oinopnevma. As in oinos (pronounced eenoss=wine) and pnevma =spirit. They also do a mineral oil (white oil - lefko ladthi), which can be used as a finish, or drink it to clear out your pipes, if you prefer )

I have no option but to speak Greek - we live in the Greek equivalent of Bodmin moor, and no one here speaks English. Getting intelligible Greek is tricky enough. 20 years on, and it's still a bloody silly language. I lived in Spain for 3 months, and by the end of it I was able to converse reasonably well, if only in a basic way, but Greek? How many 8 syllable words do you need? I sometimes get the feeling they are doing it on purpose - being willfully difficult, just because they can. There are two different ways to pronounce the number seven, and I once asked someone why they used both variants in the same sentence. The answer? "Because I can".
God bless their little cotton socks.

Final thought - there is a YouTube chappie from Zakinthos who does a lot of turning - some of his videos are in English, or have English subtitles - he is very keen to tell you what he uses, which might help regarding finishes: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sGGx5cL5NGA

 

[memzey]

Ever thought about buying some shellac flakes whilst you're over here Bob or get someone to send them out for you? The flakes would last indefinitely instead of having the pre-made polish go off in the container as I would imagine it would in the Cypriot heat. All you would have to do is mix up some flakes with a bit of methylated spirit and you've got a very good, usable finish.

That sounds like a smashing idea bob. Why didn’t anyone suggest that to you years ago?

 

[sunnybob]

Leaning against an open door here. =D>
I lost the will to live when I discovered they have FIVE different ways of spelling E. :roll: :roll:
Some of them involving two separate letters that are NOT E! :shock:
And to spell the most basic word in the English language (BEER) you have to write MPIRA. :roll: :roll:

I can read capitals and most lower case. I can read shop and road signs and understand them, and even make a very bad job of reading adverts, but I have no idea what I'm saying.
I worked with an English man (from London) who came here with his first wife (Cypriot), got divorced, married another Cypriot and lived with her family. He understands all Greek (Cypriot) no matter how fast they talk but will never speak it, because no matter how he pronounces any word, he is told he said it wrong and then has to be told the correct way (again).
I will check out that greek turner, thanks

 

[sunnybob]

Ever thought about buying some shellac flakes whilst you're over here Bob or get someone to send them out for you? The flakes would last indefinitely instead of having the pre-made polish go off in the container as I would imagine it would in the Cypriot heat. All you would have to do is mix up some flakes with a bit of methylated spirit and you've got a very good, usable finish.

That sounds like a smashing idea bob. Why didn’t anyone suggest that to you years ago?

Alright, dont go on, I suppose I'll have to buy you TWO beers now (hammer) (hammer) (hammer)

 

[memzey]

 

[CHJ]

…..
I lost the will to live when I discovered they have FIVE different ways of spelling E. :roll: :roll:
Some of them involving two separate letters that are NOT E! :shock:
…..

Seems a good enough explanation for the regular saying used by my immediate peers, "It's all Greek to me!!"

 

[sunnybob]

Just for clarity's sake. one of those five E's (actually the true english E) is pronounced EH.

There, explains everything dont it? :roll: