Have you ever completed something and said, “I would like to do that 2 more times…”
I loved getting to work on this solid walnut tabletop! It was a blast getting to take very rough lumber, cleaning it up, and seeing what was hiding underneath. The customer had a table base that worked great, but the table top was not the highest quality and it was scratching and dinging at the slightest thing. Enter Forests & Trees to make a custom top for them!
It started so great and it was coming together quite easily
The glue up: easy
The seems: square and almost invisible
The grain direction: couldn’t be happier
All that was left was to put some finish on it… (pause from dramatic affect)
I went with a shellac finish because it’s easy to apply and it looks stunning
I delivered it to the customers home and it was great! Until I got a text a few days later
Yep. A ring on the freshly finished table. A ring that didn’t go away.
They had wanted a new tabletop because the old one was marking up too easily and here was a new tabletop doing the same thing.
Oops.
I went to their house, set up shop in their garage, and sanded the WHOLE THING DOWN. That’s right, 80 grit sanded / 120 grit sanded / 150 grit sanded. After a few hours of sanding, it was new finish time. We went with a water-based polyurethane that, even though it didn’t look half as good as the shellac, it was “super strong”…
I thought.
Getting a text from a client that your product didn’t live up to expectations is no fun, but getting that text TWICE. Ouch.
You should have heard the echo from the sound of my stomach dropping. Not only did this finish not look half as good, but it gave even less protection! That was it for me. It was time to pull out the big (defined: EXPENSIVE) guns.
Enter Rubio Monocoat oil & wax finish.
This stuff is made for hardwood floors, it’s easy to apply, easy to maintain, beautiful, and extremely durable. Why didn’t I start with this? The price tag was triple what the others cost (and now we see why).
What did we learn?
We learned that sometimes it makes sense to go with the right product at the very beginning. I wasted 4-6 hours sanding, 2-4 hours waiting on finish to dry and reapply, plus 1-2 hours driving time.
Guess what finish I recommend 9/10 times now?
Rubio.