Striving for dust free varnish

[ealger]

My shop is not dust free and never will be as it houses my wood working tools, garden tools, wood stock and 2 automobiles and my canoe building space.

I start with Martin Step's routine for cleaning the shop then hanging a 12' x 20' 1 mil drop cloth over the canoe space pulling the fluorescent light pull switch cords through the plastic drape.

I only wet sand the surface with 2 pails of water, one to wash the sanding block, the other containing rinse water with a large sponge. I sand while spraying water from a 1 qt spray bottle which limits the about of excess water dripping onto the floor.

I rinse with the water-sponge and dry with blue paper shop towels from Glen Smith's tricks.

After the whole canoe is sanded, I wash the entire canoe again with a solution of warm water containing 10% household ammonia and paper towels. Then it's washed again the second time and dried. I like to do the ammonia wash very late the night before and start fresh the next day.

An hour or so before starting to varnish, I wipe the whole canoe surface using "DuPont's Sontara" pre-saturated static control wipes. I purchased the wipes from my local automotive paint store. They are the 50/50 blend of Isopropyl alcohol and water.

While the surface is drying, I mix up the varnish. At the very last minute I wipe down the hull using a "Crystal Tack Cloth" These are available from various mail order houses and from the local automotive paint shops. The Crystal tack cloths have knitted sides and sealed cut edges and are far better than any cheese cloth tacks I've used over the years. (Made by Bond Corp., Chicago IL 60612)

It's not a perfect system yet, but it's getting closer.
As Martin says, varnish. leave the lights on and walk away.
Ed..

[Bryan Hansel]

I wish I had your willpower. My varnish jobs never look that great and I'm willing to settle because I beat the heck out of my boats. One day, I hope I take the time to come up with a nice system like yours.