Tip for paint or varnish cans

Alright, I’m an old foggie. I admit it.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Been doing that for years…..oh no…...guess I’m one too Lee. Perhaps we shoud start hanging out on the front porch in our rockers. Nah…let’s go build one.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV

Fogie this!!! As far as being foggie… er… uh… yepper, it’s a veritable pea soup in here. AND if you want those opened cans of finish to survive, you’ll want to displace the oxygen with argon like with Bloxygen. Great stuff.

So there, nya!

always,
J.C.
aka The other white meat

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

Never heard that one before, I’ll have to give it a try. Maybe now my wife wont have to stomp on the cans until they crush.

-- Terry Roswell, L.A. (Lower Alabama) "Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans."

Hi Dave

My Dad was a painting contractor for years and did this all the time. To give you an idea of how long ago this was. My Dad mixed all his own colors and I remember him being so upset when rollers first came out.

Iv’e got a tip for the old foggies. Filling your glue bottle from a gallon jug. I know none of you Jocks have ever drank whiskey from a jug, but if you had. You hook your index finger in the handle of the jug and turn it back on your arm. That way by raising your arm you can control the flow of the glue and watch the bottle being filled in front of you. Now in the case of wiskey, you can control the flow and and watch yourself being filled. Not that I have ever done this!

-- Mc Bridge Cabinets, Iowa

Neat tip thanks :)

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

To display the picture put a ! at the beginning and end of the link like this

! http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn190/dlcarver/Varnishcanwholes.jpg !

Just remove the spaces to from the line above to get this:

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

jcees recomended Bloxygen, but for the more frugal (read cheap) you can minimise the oxygen in partial cans of finish by putting in glass marbles to take up the extra space. I usually have an old paint can full of clean marbles in the shop just for this purpose. Clean them up when you are done with the can & you’ll never run out of marbles (a good thing at my age). I don’t always use them, but for expensive finishes that I don’t use very often, it can save me having to buy a fresh can. Yes, I’m an old foggy and have punched holes in the rim of pait cans for years.

-- http://www.grandprairiewoodworks.com

Tim out-fogied me with the marble tip. Something about buying a seemingly empty can of inert gases for 10 bucks rubs me wrong, so I too use the marble trick. They are cheap and readily available at Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, floral supply places. Another benefit of being married to a craftsperson.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Thanks Gary….It’s done.
Dave

-- Dave Leitem,Butler,Pa.,http://dlcarver.etsy.com

Marbles are great, but my old shop teacher decades ago used to use burned-out light bulbs to displace air in cans of shellac and other finishes that tended to skin-over in the can.

-- If stradivarius was alive today, he'd be using Gorilla Glue.

Or simply transfer the remaining shellac or varnish to a smaller container to minimize the air space.

Thanks for the tip Dave, I will admit I am an old foggie since I have been using this for years but you still teach me a new trick or two- if I can manage to remember them.

Thanks for the post.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

I can’t imagine how you would use light bulbs for this? Being so breakable and so forth. I didn;t know about the marbles.
Dave

-- Dave Leitem,Butler,Pa.,http://dlcarver.etsy.com

Tim, I lost my marbles long ago. :-) I think my little brother stole them when we were kids.

I am also pretty big on puting stuff in smaller containers. I use a lot of mason jars for that. It also lets me see what’s inside with out having to open it. I also use clear squeeze bottles (cheap ones) I’ll squeeze out the air and cap the top. Seems to work well for my walnut oil and salad bowl finish.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV

Greg, wouldn’t the varnish eat through the plastic? I know the oil would be ok though.

-- Dave Leitem,Butler,Pa.,http://dlcarver.etsy.com

Tom, I LIKE THAT !!!!

-- Dave Leitem,Butler,Pa.,http://dlcarver.etsy.com

Okay, the Bloxygen is not cheap BUT, I bought two cans of the stuff over five years ago and I haven’t started on the second can yet. The disconcerting thing about it is that when you get the stuff, you think you’ve been ripped off as the can feels empty! Amazing stuff, totally eliminates the skin-over on varnishes and paints.

I also wish that the paint/stain people would put their products in collapsible containers. I used to use those to keep photographic chemistry in, they worked great. Truth be known, mfrs are in the business of selling MORE finish rather than trying to preserve/conserve material. That would be just too GREEN, wouldn’t it?

always,
J.C.

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

You can purge the oxygen from the top of the can with carbon dioxide by mixing some baking soda and vinegar.

-- Maplewood, MN

I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT SOMETIMES WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT, AFTER I SEAL THE LID BACK ON, I WILL STORE IT ‘TILL THE NEXT TIME INVERTED, (UPSIDE DOWN).... FORCING THE AIR TO ACTUALLY BE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE CAN. This sort of works, at least for a while.

-- Dave Leitem,Butler,Pa.,http://dlcarver.etsy.com