How to Choose a Wood Varnish

Video Transcript

"Varnishes, lots and lots of kinds of varnishes, finishes for wood. I'm Robert Markey and I have been doing carpentry for a long time and we are going to talk about wood varnishes. The main issue on choosing a wood varnish is where it is going to go. If it's going to go outside or if it is going to go inside. If it is going on the floor or on the cabinet, if it is going to go on a piece of furniture. If it is outside it wants to be basically a spar varnish and it is a urethane and that will last for a long time in the weather. The issue is the ultraviolet rays of the sun on a spar varnish you don't have a lot of room to move on that it will degrade over time but that is going to be your best option. When you are inside if it is a floor you are going to use a floor varnish made especially for floors because they are very very hard so it will be a floor varnish. They tend to dry pretty quick so you can get the job done so you don't have to be off your floors for a week and much harder than the regular varnish. The other kind of thing you could use is a shellac which is something for picture frames or something that is not going to get touched, definitely not going to get wet. It is very easy to put on, dries very fast, beautiful beautiful finish. It won't sustain water damage and it is very easy to refinish. There are also many many other kinds of refinish. There are also many many other kinds of materials. There are things that aren't quite varnishes that you can use outdoors like a wood preservative and some of them have some glossy not so glossy kind of finish to them. That is actually the other issue you want to think about is gloss, matte or semi gloss in any of these depending on what the final finish look that you want is. I'm Robert Markey. We've been talking about varnishes."