This great how-to video up in Skil’s “Vid Zone” covers the basics of refinishing hardwood floors. It shows you what to look for and how to take care of nail heads, worn areas, holes in the floor, and other problems you’ll run into when tackling this type of project.
Toolmongers’ll sometimes buy a cheap-ass tool on purpose — because we just need to get the job done once, and the tool quality won’t affect the project — but if we really need the tool to work right and it just doesn’t cut it, that’s not cool. My paint runs any time I paint anything, so the Run Razor looks like a tool I need, but the only review on Amazon says it’s too cheaply made to be worthwhile.
Street pricing is around $6, so even a super-duper version built to the finest German-watchmaker precision couldn’t run more than about $25.
Is the Run Razor a “hot” commodity? Are there any hot alternatives? Let us know in comments.
Run Razor [Motor Guard]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]
As wood projects go, you’ll probably never deal with any bigger surface than wood floors, and sanding them with a hand tool, powered or not, is a huge project. To hide as much scratching as possible you’ll want to sand with the grain — which is impossible with the big rotary floor machines — but the SL-8 straight-line floor sander will do the job nicely.
Recently I posted about these opaque paint-can lids designed for easy pouring, which might be ideal for a job that only uses a couple of colors. But if you happen to work with an interior designer or other colorful sort, you’d probably prefer a see-through paint-can lid like Encore Plastics’ Stack-N-Pour. Though it doesn’t look glass-clear in the pictures, it should at least help tell the difference between red and orange — even if the difference between seafoam green and periwinkle still escapes most of us.
Sure, DIY truck-bed liners can protect your truck-bed interior, but they can also protect lots of other stuff, from industrial machinery to that functional but ugly toolbox you picked up at the flea market. You can also apply bed liner to surfaces that need to be non-slip, like helipads. Regardless of which brand you go with, you’re getting the same basic product: a polyurethane base, usually color-tinted, with recycled tire chunks suspended within. It sticks to nearly anything, even itself, making for easy repairs.
So have any of you found extraordinary uses for this stuff? How has it held up in your truck bed? Tell us about it in the comments.
Durabak [Official Site]
Herculiner [Official Site]
Lava-Liner [Official Site]
Venturing into “As Seen On TV” territory, I found a fun finish. This two-part stainless-steel-doped epoxy can turn all your furniture into the space-age stainless I keep seeing.
We didn’t make this up. The Australian company that makes this product gave it a badass name that’s up there with Stanley’s Fubar — Shithot Waxtik. Following the discussions on carnauba and budget woodturning wax, I found this professional blended wax stick that includes carnauba, beeswax, microcrystalline wax, and others. With light pressure the wax stick produces a “lustrous sheen,” and with heavier pressure it gives a “satin finish.”
Pouring out of a paint can requires artistry and talent that ninety percent of the human race lacks. If you’re not one of those lucky ten percent, you can replace your paint can’s original lid with a POURit reusable lid, which lets you pour easily through a small spout. Better yet, the POURit lid closes with a simple twist top.
Grab some candles that’ve seen the end of their use as a light source, and you can finish woodwork on a lathe beautifully and economically. Once the actual shaping is complete and you’ve sanded to your satisfaction, simply hold the candle stub to the wood and watch the shine grow. It may not be the highest quality finish, and it’s certainly not the most complicated, but the candle wax produces a warm glow that brings out the beauty of the wood — and it can be as cheap as free if someone in the house is forever burning candles.
Photo from Flickr member Paraflyer.
Lathe Finish Tips [Ask Dresdner]
Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]
www.flickr.com
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