Varnish skin

[Rick Potter]

Building kitchen cabinets for home. I have several unopened one gallon cans of oil based polyurethane that I picked up at least 10 years ago when the stores here could no longer sell it. When I open them I plan to transfer the varnish to quart cans.As I need it, I will open the quarts.

1: I like the idea of using marbles to fill the partially used quart. Do you clean and reuse them or throw them away? Is there a special place you can get them by the pound?

2: Just curious, in the past I have just closed partially used cans and later pulled the skin off and strained it next time I needed it. Is this really bad? Does the skin use up some element of the varnish, leaving the rest less useable? I have never noticed having any trouble using 'skinned' varnish, other than the hassle.

Rick Potter

PS: That new 'Mix, Pour and Store' gadget that Rockler sells really shouldn't help, right? The air is still gonna be in there to skin up the varnish.

[Prashun Patel]

For marbles, couldn't you just wash them in mineral spirits to be safe?

I too have circumcised a gelled over can and used the stuff underneath, but I bet it's not good for either of us.

[Jerry Thompson]

I shoot some of that canned air for cleaning off computers,etc. I use it as one does Bloxygen. I have Mason jar with Waterlox in it and after 2 months I see no film.

[Tim Johnson]

With regard to the marbles trick, I have used them with Waterlox. I bought a few bags of decorative marbles from Hobby Lobby and dumped them into a large plastic coffee can. As I use finish out of the can, I would top it off with marbles from the coffee can. When I finished the can of finish, I would pour in some MS, shake, strain out MS into my dirty MS can, then repeat. Then I would dump the marbles back into my coffee can to use next time. Worked great because Waterlox is too expensive to let the entire can turn into gel.

I would be interested in how the Rockler mixing lids work on solvent finishes. Most reviews I have seen are for latex paint.

[Ole Anderson]

I am looking at the Rockler mixing lids also. Wondering if one could just blast some Bloxygen or similar into the spout. Does the canned air say what the makeup is? Is it just compressed air or is it compressed nitrogen or co2 or some type of freon-like low boiling point liquid? I would use it for wipe-on varnish which has a lot of solvents.