Friday, December 1, 2006

Interesting Problem

In my last post I detailed how I stripped down an old pine floor and finished that post with applying the first coat of finish. I had hoped that by now I'd be happily reporting things went according to plan and I had just put down the third and last coat of finish. No such luck! It has been very warm here for the past week. That is nice for having the doors and windows open, but the high humidity did not help that first coat of finish dry.
Normally the finish will dry overnight. It has been over two days now and that first coat of finish is still tacky in spots. Close examination of the floor revealed the first half of the floor I striped with the Crown Stripper dried hard and even. The second half of the floor that I stripped with the Strypeeze dried blotchy and is still tacky in spots. Could that stripper have left something on the wood to retard the finish curing? The entire floor was cleaned down with mineral spirits to remove any remaing residue. It is only the Strypeeze section of the floor that has problems......
I just turned on the furnace to see if that will help speed up the drying...I'll give that section another day to dry. At least I'll be able to steel wool down the dried section of the floor today.
It is problems like this that make these projects "interesting".
To be continued.....