Finishing A to Z: Beyond the Books

Finishing A to Z: Beyond the Books – So how useful is the set of DVD’s going to be? “Very much I hope” My finishing skills leave a lot to be desired – A REAL LOT so much in fact that if you see most of my projects on LJ they are all hand applied and natural finishes with no stains or dyes. The price of this DVD set was about $120.00. The first one bought was got and watched was not impressive it was very limited in content and Charles and Bob spent too much time just talking without instruction I don’t think there was a script so that may be the reason. “Sorry Charles” but then maybe I expected too much, because of the short clips I saw on YouTube were more informative and. I have the utmost respect for Charles as well as his skills. I am sure he has much to offer in the series listed below. I have confidence that I will learn and benefit greatly as I watch and apply what I learn.
Here are the titles:

1. Special Finishing Techniques

2. Hand Applied Finishes

3. Building to finish – Sanding & Smoothing

4. Preparing to color – Repairing defects

5. Coloring Wood – Dyes & Stains

6. Controlling Color

7. Advanced Coloring Techniques

8. Spray Guns & Turbines

9. Spray Techniques

10. Spraying Top Coats

So which one to start with? As much as I would like to jump right to the spray gun DVD part I think I will watch them the way they are listed. I really like the fact that he included a Reference Manuel to go along with the series which after paging through it (Downloadable in pdf format) found a lot of good stuff “smart move Charles” I will most likely use it to purchase my Spray equipment as well as the products he recommends. He seems to be a proponent of Woodcraft Stores; I know he offers some classes with them as well or at least has in the past, I like going to there classes and have got a lot out of the ones I attended. So off we go to learn the finishing.

Well I ended up starting with #9 Spray Techniques and Wow! It was better than I expected it was like he was reading my mind as I had a question he answered it. There is so much information I know I will need to watch it several times I can’t wait to start another one. I will go more into depth as time goes on but this is one you need to get if you’re a beginner at spray finishing because it explains the basics better than I have seen in magazines and articles. I found myself saying “Ah! So that was what they were saying in that book I read”.

April 6th 2008
Well with #9 down I decided to look at # 8 Spray Guns & Turbines Charles takes you through the anatomy of the spray gun and what the differences are in there features in a very straight forward way He explains Conventional, HPLV, LPLV and other types of systems on the market before going into compressor driven and turbine. I liked the way he gave a non technical explanation of how to choose a tip and nozzle size and made strong points of the types of safety gear you must use.

-- Just another day in paradise.