In article , jmweber987
@aol.com says...
Off to the Orange Borg I go to buy some varnish and naptha to thin it with for
use as a wipe on. No cans marked varnish but lots of cans labeled Urethane.
Hummmm. So off to the Non-Orange Borg to see what they have. Ha, a can of
varnish. Read the back and it says 100% urethane. So I'm now assuming varnish
and urethane are the same thing and poly-urethane is something else altogether.
Right?? Wrong??. The brands were Olympic or Minwax. Okay to use this stuff
or would I be better off buying something online like Watco or the like from
one of the finishing places like homestead? Mike in Arkansas

If you accept the current generic definition of varnish, a surface
finish of oil, carrier/thinner, resin, polyurethane and urethane are
varnishes. The only difference being the type of resin used and the hype
the advertisement people give it.

If you want to get picky about it and throw in archaic definitions the
whole mess can get quite complex.

My take is that, for almost all practical purposes, it matters little
which octane varnish is used. Of course my take is also to avoid varnish
whenever possible and practical.

You also will find spar/marine varnish. This is a long oil varnish, a
higher ration of oil to resin making for a more flexible finish that can
better accommodate the movement of wood in an outdoor environment.
However it is still a surface finish made up of an oil, carrier/thinner,
resin.

Hope it helps
--
MikeG
Heirloom Woods
www.heirloom-woods.net