Water Based Conversion Varnish

[Prashun Patel]

Has anyone used Enduro Conversion Varnish ? How does it compare in durability to Clear Poly or Endurovar? Do you think it can outperform Waterlox?

I am finishing a kitchen island and my default is Waterlox but I would prefer to spray.

[Prashun Patel]

I went with Target EM8000CV + CL Cross linker.

[Ed Gibbons]

Anyone ever use this product over danish oil. Specs say best used only over water based stains. Danish oil specs state can be top-coated after 72 hours.

[Jim Becker]

Anyone ever use this product over danish oil. Specs say best used only over water based stains. Danish oil specs state can be top-coated after 72 hours.
You'll probably want a barrier coat of de-waxed shellac to promote adhesion.

[Ed Gibbons]

That’s what I am thinking Jim. I plan on waiting at least a week before I do anything.

[Chuck Saunders]

This is my default topcoat. Durability and short recoat times. It is a joy to spray.
Chuck

[Prashun Patel]

I have had a great experience (so far) with Target EM8000CV with the cross linker. I am using the flat sheen.

When put on raw wood, the flat sheen not only lacks any color, it lacks any depth whatsoever. It's as if an invisible coat is placed on the wood. I did not want that effect.

So, I coated with 2 coats of Waterlox Original Sealer Finish, then a thin coat of garnet shellac. I only used the garnet because I had it on hand.

My sanding wasn’t perfect. I have some undulations from plane track marks I missed.

This is where a flat sheen is great. It hides almost everything. The last pic shows it drying for 30 mins @ 60 degrees. You can still see a little striping, and in the center you can see where my sanding failed to remove all of the underlying track marks from the plane; there are some undulations there. As the finish dries and the sheen reduces, this should disappear.

I sprayed this with a Fuji Semipro 2 stage. I now use the 3m PPS cup system which is just fantastic for cleanup, and for its ability to spray at any angle. The PPS system is great because your finish stays in a collapsable bag that keeps all air and hence sputtering as the finish is used up.

[Jim Becker]

Dang....that looks really good, Prashun!!! Is that the island top we were chatting about?

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks for all your help, Jim. Yes. That’s the one.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Nice work Prashun!

[Jim Becker]

I'm going to have to order some product in the matte/flat sheen...I really love that look.

[glenn bradley]

Great look. The color looks very natural. Good info on the 3M system as well, thanks!

[Howard Pollack]

Can this be applied with a brush or a pad instead of spraying? Thanks -Howard

[Prashun Patel]

Howard,

I didn't see anything in the instruction sheets that led me to believe that it cannot be brushed. I believe it is a little too thick and would dry too fast to be wipeable. I strongly suspect this to be the case because on test boards, I actually do wipe a little on with a blue towel, and it's a mess to get it leveled. It appears to stay wetter, longer than the two GF products I've used (Endurovar and Clear Poly) so, I suspect it would brush a little easier than those two.

Brushing or padding a flatter sheen may pose other problems. Shooting these are good because the gun (and the PPS) keep it moving and mixed properly.

[Jim Becker]

Can this be applied with a brush or a pad instead of spraying? Thanks -Howard

You "can" hand apply it, but like many waterborne finishes, the dry time is so fast that it's going to be more of a challenge to get a nice even application. I don't prefer hand applying even the waterborne stuff from the 'borg for that reason and they tend to have slightly longer dry times because they are designed for folks to be able to hand apply them. Buy a quart and see what you think.

[Prashun Patel]

Here are some more pix of the fully-dried finish. While it dries quickly, it stayed a little rubbery under a finger nail for a day, and gradually is getting harder. It requires 120 hours @ 70 deg for cure.

Jeff @ Target Coatings (very helpful, btw) told me the cross linker adds a slight bit or color and sheen to the finish. You can see that all the striping from the gun and undulations from the planing have disappeared even under raking light.

What has NOT disappeared is the bit of deep tear out I did not see until too late...

[Jim Becker]

Just tell anyone who actually notices that the tear-out is to prove that it's real wood. :)

Seriously, that looks AWESOME!

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for the latest pics, Prashun. I was less impressed than some others from the first photos, but now I definitely am and would be willing to give that product a try. Beautiful, consistent sheen.

FWIW, GF's Endoro Clear Poly in flat, or matte, gives the same look. Of course it's not CV; I'm just pointing out that there are alternatives when you want a product that looks like it's not even there. The Enduro Clear Poly Flat on Baltic birch looks like no finish until you get at least 3 coats on it.

John

[Prashun Patel]

I remember you mentioned about Clear Poly Flat. I have used other sheens of Clear Poly and have no issues with it. It's held up well in my Master Bath cabinets and my neighbor's bar. I finished a table with it at work, though, and that has taken a little beating. For whatever reason, I have found The EM8000CV product to go on a little easier. It seems easier to get a thin, wet coat. I found I have to fiddle with my gun to get the pattern perfect with the Clear Poly. But with the EM8000CV, it seemed to achieve the right level of wet and thin.

One other thing: Clear Poly and Endurovar tend to scab up the tip of my gun. So, on each pass, I have to pick the nozzle clean with a finger nail; it's a 1-second operation, but there are times when I needed to spray for 10-15 second before i could get finish to flow. I am not an expert finisher, but I suspect the product is just a tad too thick for my 1.3mm tip.

I did not have this issue with the Target product. It sprayed strong and consistent regardless of the fluid dial.

There are other variables here. The cross linker affects the viscosity, and I was spraying in the winter. Also, most of my previous Enduro spraying was done with the conventional pressure pot. I only switched to the 3mPPS last year. So, I don't have a lot of miles with Clear Poly in the new cup system. So, YMMV.

[John TenEyck]

You're using a turbine gun, right? My friend has a 3 or 4 stage Fuji and he can spray nice coats of EnduroVar and Clear Poly, but his results are never as good as from my conversion gun. I attribute that to the warm air drying the finish too quickly. The solution is to add a few % or GF's Extender. I typically add it when I spray those products, especially EnduroVar, to give it more time to flow out. I don't know what the pressure is to the PPS cup with your gun, but I typically run 5 psi to it and a 1.0 mm N/N, so using a 1.3 mm seems about right with the lower atomization pressure of your turbine.

I have the same problem with pretty much any finish tending to coat the end of the nozzle, and the air horn, too, after even short spraying sessions. Curiously, my friend doesn't with his Fuji. But it's an easy thing to rectify, just wipe the end of the nozzle immediately after each spray session. As long as it sprays well it doesn't bother me.

The EM-CV looks like a great product. And if it sprays easily that will be even more reason to try it.

John

[Prashun Patel]

John, you've given me so much great finishing advice over the last 2 years. Thx. You have me now considering a conversion gun...

Here are some pix of the installed top.

I left one edge live. The cantilevered side has functional cabinet doors. This posed a problem for adding support brackets. I really wanted some visual weight underneath, so I would have prefered brackets, but had to settle for embedding steel U channel. I bolted the brackets to the slab, and the slab to the cabinet. Every cross grain connection is done through an elongated hole.

One bit of poor planning: I should have sacrificed more of the original board and trimmed off all of the checking. Squaring and trimming the painted end after glue up revealed some checking that I should have caught. Too late now... I glued in a couple walnut Domino Dutchmen.

The jury's out on whether this is easier or harder to maintain than a surface with more sheen. Will circle back in a few months on that..

[Jim Becker]

Truly outstanding, Prashun!!! And it's perfect for that wonderful kitchen space, too.

I don't think that the sheen is going to matter relative to maintenance, honestly. On the gun, I'm so glad I took John's advice and hooked myself up with the Qualspray with 3M PPS cup from Homestead/Jeff Jewitt.

[John TenEyck]

Beautiful indeed, Prashun. The more the top gets rubbed the glossier it will become. Sorry, that's just the way it is with flat finishes. Film finish sheen is controlled by the scattering of light from the flatters creating a micro texture at the surface. When you rub the surface the texture gets flattened out and less light gets scattered. I didn't believe this was true until I went and proved it to myself. I wouldn't fret about it though. If it starts to get streaky or too shiny you can always abrade it with Micromesh, etc. to cut the sheen back down to whatever you desire.

As for the gun, it's really hard to beat the versatility and range of capability of the Qualspray conversion gun with pressure cup. Being able to independently control the pressure to the cup and the spray pressure allows you to adapt to finishes from water to BM Advance. But there are lots so of other options for guns of that type, including the incredibly convenience friendly 3M Accuspray with a pressurized PPS cup.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, and cleanup is a lot easier with the gun I now have...by magnitudes. What I get a big chuckle out of is that I'm still using the same "disposable" cup a year later. :D

[Prashun Patel]

I'm posting this as a lesson learned...

My daughter placed a hot cup of tea on the table, and lo and behold! A little blushing.

Further research shows that some people have had issues with white spots appearing underneath hot pizza boxes on conversion varnish.

This is apparently less of an issue with waterbased products and the cross linker is supposed to help resist even more, but it still happened to me.

I called Jeff @ Target (I do love that I can get through to an expert). He suggests that despite giving this about 1.5 weeks of curing (1 week is recommended), the temperature may have been too low, so the finish may be early in the cure cycle. He suggested that with time, this will probably slowly disappear on its own, but that I might accelerate it with gentle heat from a hair dryer.

I also wonder if this may have something to do with the flat sheen that I used. But he described flat sheen issues as manifesting as burnished (not white) spots. The Internet also suggest that this can happen from a an over catalyzed finish. I added it per the directions: slowly stirring, and not letting it settle. I also sprayed it all in the first day - even though the catalyzed product has a respectable 5-day pot life. However, I think I might have been closer to 7-10% cross linker - instead of the recommended 5-7%.

I plan to give it a few days to see if it abates.

[John TenEyck]

Let us iknow if it goes away Prashun. My friend had a similar experience with EnduroVar and a leaky hot tea pot that sat on the table for hours. Sadly, it's still there a year later.

John

[Jim Becker]

This is clearly a danger we all face with wooden surfaces...hopefully, it will abate with time, and, as Jeff suggested, a little bit of mild heat.

[Prashun Patel]

While it is a theoretic danger, I gotta say, I abuse a lot of my work, and have never had a hot cup of tea hurt anything. The irony is I wanted THIS one to be bulletproof. I know from epoxies that longer cure times are generally correlated with increased durability. I hope that was just the case here. I can deal with a single white spot. But I'd like after a few months to be able to treat it like a kitchen island not a museum piece.

[mark mcfarlane]

Prashun, did the 'hot tea cup blush' mark eventually go away on its own? Did you apply heat and did that work?

[Prashun Patel]

Yes Mark. In fact it did go away. I tried using a hair dryer at first and that did not work. Time worked. It looks perfect now.

[mark mcfarlane]

Yes Mark. In fact it did go away. I tried using a hair dryer at first and that did not work. Time worked. It looks perfect now.

Thanks Prashun, did the blush go away after days, weeks, months?

[Prashun Patel]

Months. Are you using the same product?

[mark mcfarlane]

Thanks Prashun.

I just bought a used table with SW post-cat varnish on it. It has a couple blush spots, one fairly bad.

I'm trying to decide if I need to sand down to raw wood or should wait a few months and see what happens. I didn't ask the seller how old the spot was, it could already be 4 years old :). There is a new thread I started today in the finishing forum on this particular blush problem.

I found this 2 year old thread just researching conversion varnish, I have no product experience, yet.

[Prashun Patel]

Is your product oil based? The 8000cv is waterbased. So I am not sure the two products share much in actual practice.

[mark mcfarlane]

Ya, my table is oil based CV from SW. I think I'll try some heat. I'm not worried too much about messing it up, as it stands I probably need to sand to bare wood, or see if I can sand off only the top coat in the blush area and then scuff sand the rest.