On Friday, October 31, 2014 8:48:07 AM UTC-5, Sonny wrote:


I kinna feel like I got castigated, here, and, to some extent, rightly so.. I don't mind, at all, being guided in the right direction.

I hope you don't feel that way because of my post. I take for granted we are all guys here, and when I am in "contractor" mode, I tend to write and speak as I do when on the job. Besides, remember what I post is my opinion, based on my experience(s). It certainly isn't anything written in stone.

Sometimes too, I tend to skip the niceties. I am around contractors, sub contractors, vendors and such all day long and our language and while polite, our interface with one another can be extremely crisp and brief.

Gradully, over those years, many things changed, with respect to finishing products. For us non-experts, these changes can be confusing. For someone as I, and likely the OP (my reasoning), finding one or two finishes and techniques and, somewhat, mastering those, is also reasonable. But this wasn't the crux of my post. I suppose I shouldn't have commented about any of this. It has nothing to do with fixing his problem.

I disagree. These threads rarely stay exactly on topic and often times that leads to another adjoining issue that is pertinent to the discussion. I say "fire away" and let the chips fall where they will. No one owns this joint and everyone is entitled to post as they please.

The OP's project is not fine furniture, requiring absolute expert finishing. He seemed to be concerned that he might have to strip and refinish the radiator cover, maybe even if the project was ruined, and the concern for the baby.

With the info we have, it's unlikely the project is ruined, it's unlikely it may need to be stripped and refinished, if he allows time for more curing, and if more curing solves the odors/fumes issue, then the concerns for the baby should be resolved. I was also treating the "patient", to be patient with his project, not just treating the project.


In all likelihood, the project is fine, but the finish is not. If you have a finish that should dry to the touch in a few hours, and it is still oily after a few days, that should be a signal that things are screwed up. If you poured concrete and it didn't get hard in a day, you would know something was wrong. If you painted a wall and it was "wet" for a few days, you would understand that things weren't right. If you laid brick and the mortar didn't set up, you would assume something went wrong.

Here's what I don't get. The finish OP describes stays oily for a few days and no one thinks that much of it, and is actually advised all could be well with patience. So to boil it down, there is an application of an incorrectly mixed solution to a surface that, since it was not mixed well (specifically using the product NOT as designed), refuses to create the chemical reaction it is designed to do. So the application is fouled, as is the final product.

Even if the coating finally "dries", no doubt it will not perform as intended.

What grinds my gears is the folks that advise "repairs" and "things to try" based on rumor and hearsay. No professional finisher or even an experienced home finisher would advise some of the nonsense that shows up. For example, you clearly have a non miscible, oil finish that is being used. Why would you put shellac ON TOP of a non bondable substrate to begin with, and worse, why would you put a finish on top of wet finish that uses a completely different solvent/carrier? Maybe some of those things might be OK as a completely last ditch effort, but even then, when you have screwed up it is time to move forward.

I AM NOT singling you out or pointing a finger at you. But for the casual poster that taps out reply, sometimes they don't think of the consequences of what they post. Someone might actually TRY the methods they post or the materials they suggest, even if the respondent doesn't have any real knowledge to know if it will work. I have seen many suggestions over the years posted here as advice on repairs that I KNOW have made the problem worse, caused more work, and wasted more time than should have ever happened.

I suppose the spirit of our words don't always get posted, as we are thinking of them, as we write.


True enough. It is difficult to get the intent of the spoken word to the page, and it all sounds different to each of us. As we do more and more interfacing by way of keyboard, I always try to think twice before I post to see if my post was too offensive, or if I could tone down my response if I was in torch mode.

All the best to you, Sonny. I enjoy your posts.

Robert