On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:12:47 GMT, Jim Conlin
wrote:

PCF-
I share your doubts about some of Ms. Wittman's methods.

I'm eagerly awaiting your book. Seriously.

Jim

I think that was a compliment.

At any rate. I really don't think of myself as a varnisher/painter.
I'm primarily a boatwright (and a web monkey in a parallel life) but
because 95% of my work has been antique speedboats, I do much more
finishing work than most marine carpenters.

I'm a pretty fair varnisher. Paint, though, is much, much harder.Many
people don't understand that. Varnish gets all the sighs of
admiration. But one's eye is fooled by the grain of the wood. With
paint, you are looking at _only_ the surface. I'm doing a 32 ft. Chris
cruiser right now. I worked the paint up to the last coat. Actually I
put on a couple coats which I thought were the last coats but were not
good enough. Sooooo, I called in the best guy with a brush that I know
about in the Seattle area, Kim Lazarre. I call him the zen master of
brush work. He did a wonderful job. He could paint a car with a brush
and it would look great. (Actually in the old days, cars were painted
with brushes. There were special car painting brushes.)

Painting is a matter of concentration and sticking strictly to a
routine. Kim has a lot of insights. He's the guy that should write a
book.

"P.C. Ford" wrote:

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 06:51:30 -0600, "Keith"
wrote:

Get Rebecca Witman's (Whitman?) book on refinishing teak.

A bit of a warning:

Though one can do a good job using Whitman's book, some of the
suggestions are, ummmm, not generally accepted professional finishing
practice.

Two items of note. She suggests using foam brushes. Foam brushes put
on a very skimpy coat and they have no "feel." A foam brush will apply
about 2/3 of a bristle brush. A high quality, yes-expensive, brush is
much better. Also, she advocates using the black foam rollers. These
actually put too much material. Better to use the yellow Tiz brand
rollers.

Also, techniques and practices are always evolving. She seems to be
several years behind the times. Maybe she is no longer doing boats,
but just writing about it. (?)

One thing that is kind of funny. The pictures in her book are not
necessarily her projects. In fact, one is a boat I did.

Amateurs love her book; maybe the reason is her florid writing style.
There is nothing howlingly wrong. It's just the some of her techniques
are not used by the majority of professional finishers. There are
better ways of doing things.