PA Refinishing & Restoration: Volume 6, Issue 25 (Repost)

In the fields of furniture restoration and touch-up, it's nice to have more: more colors, more ways to accomplish the job, more coffee breaks just checking to see if you are paying attention!, and more stuff--what ever the stuff may be--to make the job go better. One of commedian George Carlin's most famous routines involves "stuff". The more we have, the more storage containers we need to buy to put it in, and the bigger the house we need to store those in, etc.

Applying more finish may indeed protect the furniture against wear and tear but too much finish--can take away from the clarity of the wood grain. And, every coat of finish applied runs the additional risk of reacting with contaminents ranging from chemical to organic (human hair or house flies). Some finishers like to use additives such as Fish-Eye Eliminator or Lacquer Retarder as insurance against bad finishing reactions. Using too much of any of these too often does more harm than good. A really good insurance policy is to read the label more often to see if you are really following the recommendations. In many cases, less is more.

Doing a touch-up often means working on an area where color has been scraped or worn off. Finding the right color to fill in is extremely helpful. However, here again, less is more. Application of too much of the "right" color can actually make it appear too dark. One rule of thumb is to add color gradually. Once it's dry, you can always darken it more if you need to, but once you get it too dark, you may have to start the touch-up over--or worse yet, refinish the whole piece! A little restraint may take more time initially but will save you time in the long run.

PA Refinishing & Restoration: Volume 6, Issue 26 (Repost)

by Paul Smith

Instant communication can be a great thing. Sometimes, it can save a life. On a more day-to-day basis, it can provide comparison shoppers with the data they need to get the best price on whatever they are buying. All of this, of course, assumes that the instant information obtained is correct.

As a proprietor of a furniture touch-up and restoration products business with an online presence, I am very aware of others in the same business, peddling the same or similar items. As much as I would like to believe that my outlet serves customers the best, more than a few end up at other sources when they decide to buy. Because I want as many of them to stay with Moffitt-Smith, my online business, I make a point of searching around the internet to see who else is selling the same stuff, how much they are charging, and what the online experince is like. I do the same analysis on my website, trying to be as objective as possible. If I see something I like on another site, I might ask if that can be applied to Moffitt-Smith. If I see something that I dislike, I'll look at my site and see if that same problem could exist there. Every webmaster (or website editor) should constantly be on the lookout for improvements to their own sites. After all, a positive experience on the internet encourages the customer to order online again at your site, my site, and others. A negative experience, on the other hand, can do great damage to all online merchants.

What can cause a bad experience on the internet? The obvious answers usually involve being the victim of fraud--or your computer screen becoming a rotating billboard for unsolicited products! Less obvious to many online merchants--and web designers--is incorrect information can leave a bad impression on the source as well as as the subject of the material.

On a recent search for sources of touch-up sticks, I came across a "Student Touch-up Kit" with a variety of fill sticks, burn-in sticks, and touch-up markers. The seller had apparently attented a Mohawk Touch-up seminar and had five "hardly even used" sets for sale at what was promised to be less than Mohawk's regular price and "much less" than what the distributors would charge. In fact, her price was less for her slightly used product than what you would pay for new (big surprise!) However, the comments below from previous buyers indicated disappointment in the color selection. The seller's response to one was to say that you could see the selection on the picture (the set was in a clear plastic bag). No mention was made of a refund or exchange offer. Even before the sale was made, the potential buyer was told that this selection was the best available and if it were purchased anywhere else, the buyer would be paying too much. In effect, the seller damaged not only her own crediblity but all of those who sell Mohawk touch-up supplies--maybe even all touch-up supply sellers. At the very least, these buyers will think twice before buying online again.

To set the record straight, I invite you to go to the Mohawk Finishing Products Website and click on "find a distributor". There, you will see many potential sources of restoration supplies, each with their own product selection (not all are Mohawk) and their own prices. I have not seen one website among these that makes wild claims about other sources. They simply describe the product and let you make your own conclusions.

If price is the primary factor, you can use a price comparision service such as Froogle. Provided that what you are looking for is listed, you can see a list of various suppliers and make a choice based on price and service. If your search takes you to resellers like the one I described earlier, I'd advise you to read the comments from previous buyers. Yes, instant communication can be a great thing!

PA Refinishing & Restoration: Volume 6, Issue 27 (Repost)

The ABC's of HAPs and VOC

by Paul Smith

Regulations, by their nature, are divisive. Everytime we hear about a new one we either, (a) embrace it as a much-needed protection for us/our ethnicity/our religion/our environment or, (b) condemn it as an intrusion to us/our freedom/our rights/our business. The truth is, every regulation ever written is both.

When it comes to envirionmental regulations, California leads the United States in the enacting most of the well-known laws governing environmental issues. This is no accident. Since the 1970's, when Los Angeles routinely led the nation in smog levels--mostly attributed to automobile emissions--California has had to find a way to make breathing a little easier. By legislating tougher emission standards in cars allowed to be sold in California, they did two things: They (1) put pressure on our national Environmental Protection Agency to tighen its standards on all cars sold in the USA and (2) put the automakers in the position of either selling two lines of cars--with the lower emission ones being sold to California residents--or tightening the already tighter EPA imposed standards to meet all cars sold in the US. Over time, the second choice became much more reasonable. It was much more efficient to produce one level of emissions standards
on each car model just as it's much easier to stack plates in your cupboard at home if they are all the same size.

Over the last decade, environmental regulations have tightened on many restoration products. HAPS, which stands for Hazardous Air Pollutants, is a regulatory standard applied to air quality. VOC compliance also addresses environmental concerns and applies to lacquers and other finishes. Some states, including Pennsylvania, have offered an even more stringent VOC standard. see PA Code Chapter 130, Title 611 Even so, California has led the nation in environmental standards for restoration products as they have in many issues pertaining to clean air, water, and soil. Like auto manufacturers, restoration products manufacturers have had to choose to upgrade their product compliance or not sell them to California.

With the New England and Mid-Atlantic states becoming the next hotbed of environmental regulations, the strategy of not selling certain products to California will be short-lived. In time, federal regulations will catch-up, forcing formulatic changes to many restoration products that have not yet changed. Already, larger manufacturers, such as Mohawk Finishing Products, have changed formulas to make them more VOC compliant with mixed results. Of course, the products successfully met the standards but, in some cases, the coloration was slightly different and/or the usage was restricted in a different way.

In the 1990's, independent family-owned manufacturers, like Restorco/Kwick Kleen, joined the larger manufacurers in introducing HAPs compliant finishes alongside traditional ones to give customers the best of both worlds. It is likely that the environmentally friendly ones will eventually eclipse the others as more attention is focused on environmental issues. For this reason, users of finishing products should check the labels for the three-letter listings of VOC and HAP and if they do not see them yet, keep a lookout for newer variations that will meet these standards. Becoming familiar with this new generation of restoration products now--before the old generation disappears--will ensure a smoother transition for finishing technicians and a big step in the right direction for environmental protection.