Advantages to Finishing a Woodworking Project Before Assembly
George VondriskaDescription
If you’re anything like George, you don’t like stressing over the minute details of a project after you think you’re already done. So George Vondriska teaches you the advantages to finishing a woodworking project before assembly. By applying finish to a piece with tight corners and small spaces prior to final assembly, you can avoid having to do any cleanup work on the spots you want to leave bare.
Some projects, like this first aid cabinet that I'm working on, just beg to be finished before you put 'em together on the interior surfaces. So, let me wipe this one off, and I'm gonna to show you what I'm talking about here. Once this cabinet goes together, it's pretty small. And not only that, but the back gets installed as part of the assembly process. So, that makes finishing the interior even more difficult. In this case, the back is painted white that's to make the inside of the cabinet nice and bright. So, I can see what's in there. So, lots of inside corners to work around, and it'd really be a pain to put finish on this thing after it looks like that. Now, just so you understand where I'm going over here, the outside corners on this piece are all dovetailed. So, what I've got here are the pieces for another one of those cabinets covered with masking tape. The deal is we want to finish the interior faces but not get any finish on the joints. So, here under the masking tape are the dovetail pin and sockets. On this piece of Walnut in front of me, under the masking tape, are the dovetails themselves. This component has a dado in it that's gonna receive the center shelf. The center shelf has been masked off on the ends to the depth of the dado. So that can go in there and not have finish on it. The deal with that is that if you've got finish on the piece, when you try to glue everything together the glue isn't gonna want to stick. So, this is a great approach to making this a whole lot easier to do. It's so easy to brush and wipe the Tung oil on these surfaces now, compared to doing it after it's built into a cabinet. Really gonna save me a lot of time. It's going to be a better job, better result. And one of the things I do up here by the masking tape is I'll pull the finish down this way toward me rather than this way because I don't want to work it under the masking tape. So I pull the excess off that way there, pull the excess off this way here. So, it doesn't get inside the dado daddy-o. That surface is done, I can keep going. So next time, you've got a project similar to this keep in mind the idea of finishing before you put everything together it's going to make everything a lot easier. You're gonna get a better result, just make sure you mask off those glue joints so that you don't affect the ability of the glue to hold everything together.
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Another good reason to stain first is that any glue squeeze-out that occurs during assembly can interfere with your staining. For some projects, it can be advantageous to almost completely stain and finish the pieces prior to gluing/assembly, while protecting the future, glued, contact surfaces with blue tape, stuffing pieces of paper towel in other areas, such as leg holes, as needed. Where assembly involves many pieces that fit together, that will need to be moved around a bit for a good, combined fit, consider using hyde glue, which has a very long set-up time, unlike the PVA glues, and easily washes off with a damp sponge even after it is dry.
Do you tape slightly past the line to make sure you have no gaps in the finish? Getting the tape perfectly alined on butt joints (with dominos) seems like it would be hard.
George, watched your video in finishes but still not sure about my situation. what finish would you recomment for small unfinished / natural wood toys? Trains, planes, etc. Needs to be safe, something to give some luster to wood grains, protects wood better, add definition to assortment of woods. and easy as possible to do in small shop. PaPa Jack
Understood that you need to mask glue joints to prevent topcoat from impacting adhesion. Is it necessary (or advisable) to mask for oil or water based stains as well? How about for sanding sealer?
what is the best wood insulation materiel in very hot dry weather up to 55 degree ? this is outdoor sets nearest the fountain and garden ( some of water come into it )