The Complete Guide for Those Who Love to Build and Hate to Finish

Take the mystery out of wood finishing with easy-to-follow exercises designed by Teri Masaschi, one of the nation's premier wood finishing instructors. Woodworkers of all skill levels can minimize guesswork and costly mistakes as they learn the secrets of choosing, using and applying the perfect finish.

Inside FoolProof Wood Finishing You'll Discover:
- 10 Recipes For Creating Timeless Looks, like Deep Antique Cherry
- Creative Techniques, such as Glazing and Color Layering
- Best Practices for Sanding, Conditioning and Repairing Wood
- Amusing Anecdotes from the Author's Lifetime of Wood Finishing

Teri Masaschi's career in antique restoration, furniture building and furniture finishing began as a fourteen-year old apprentice to a fine arts dealer in Amherst, New Hampshire. There she learned the traditional methods for conserving and restoring valuable antiques along with learning to build furniture in the Queen Anne, Federal and Chippendale styles. As Product Manager for Woodworker's Supply Inc., Teri was responsible for testing, acquiring and maintaining all of the finishing products in the national mail order catalog and training store employees about these products. She honed her finishing expertise further by trouble-shooting problems for national customers. Teri has written for Fine Woodworking Magazine, American Woodworker and Home Furniture. She teaches wood finishing at: The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship (ME), Anderson Ranch (CO), Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking (CT, Northwest Woodworking Studio (OR), Kelly Mehler's School of Woodworking (KY) and at the Santa Fe Community College (NM). Teri has judged wood finishing competitions hosted by the Albequerque Woodworker's Association (NM) and the Woodworker's Showcase (NY). She lives in Tijeras, New Mexico.

Plenty of books have been published on the art of wood finishing; but what other than Teri Masaschi's Foolproof Wood Finishing For Those Who Love To Build & Hate to Finish, offersa virtual guarantee of success - and acknowledges the reluctance of many woodworkers to attend to finishing? Restorers and finishers know how to get the most out of pieces - or so they think: expert Teri Masaschi here explores all the basics, from determining the best finish for a project to fixing minor defects and understanding common problems and errors. Woodworkers will find it a key to constant, reliable success.

There are sidebar tips in every section, and 'Adventures in Finishing' stories of the author's personal experience with customers as well as finishes. She also includes a gallery of common woods with different finishes listed in steps, as they were applied. There is an appendix of product sources, a glossary of tems and a full index.

No longer do we have to smuggle in with our holiday luggage those finishes which we could not buy in the UK. Thanks mainly to General Finishes, milk paints, glaze effects, wipe on urethane stains and topcoats etc are now readily available and gaining a following in the UK supported by that woodworking legend Norm.

Teri Masaschi, using these products has restored, conserved and refinshed furniture for nearly four decades and for three decades has been a professional finisher. Today, she runs her own business and shares her extensive knowledge with students at woodworking schools throughout the USA. So who better to write a book on these products.

The full title of the book is "Foolproof Wood Finishing, for those who love to build and hate to finish," and Teri shows you how to choose, use and apply the perfect finish. The book covers some of the basics of finishing, including tools and materials, and first of the three stages of finishing, i.e. Planning.

The step-by-step exercises which make up the majority of the book shows you how to perform the second stage of finishing, i.e. completing your project.

Chapters, which are lavishly shown in colour, cover: preparing the surface, filling holes, grain filling, colours, top coats, running out and finally repairing and touching up.

There is a list of tools and materials required at the beginning of each exercise.

This book is very readable and presented in a straight-forward manner. It also fills a gap in the market place on how to use these readily available finishes which are now becoming popular in the UK.

This is very much a "how-to" book and suitable for woodworkers of all abilities. Recommended.

Put yourself - not your products - in control of the finishing process by using the practical information provided by the author in this easy-to-follow reference book, illustrated with many excellent color photos.
Finishing instructor Teri Masachi has considerable experience building, restoring, conserving and refinishing furniture over nearly four decades. She begins her books with the basics - tools and materials, safety and planning. Next she gives extensive step-by-step directions for making test samples to demonstrate the many wood preparation, coloring and topcoating tasks. She also includes her favorite finishing recipes, a gallery of finely finished furniture and tips for furniture care.

An ethical conflict is brewing over my review of Teri Masaschi's recent book, Foolproof Wood Finishing. In exchange for writing this, Fine Woodworking is donating the book to my club's library, the Long Island Woodworkers' Club.

So what is the conflict? I don't want to give it up. This book belongs on a shelf next to my other essential woodworking texts such as the seminal series Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking and R. Bruce Hoadley's Understanding Wood.

This book supplies the information you need for all hand-applied finish and repair circumstances. While there is some information on spraying, the book mainly focuses on hand-applied techniques since the book is aimed at the amateur woodworker. The guide is eloquent and complete. Masaschi gives you the information; all you need to add is patience for the exacting finishing procedures. That's one thing Masaschi can't teach you.

Masaschi tackles each technique from the most basic level without talking down to the reader. Every step and formula gets detailed directions with photos. The formatting helps you to follow along. When she refers to a photograph, it's never far away so you avoid the tedious flipping back and forth that you find in some books.

After reading the book, I better understand how to fix all sorts of defects, how to prepare surfaces, what finish to use, and why. I also now know how.

Different glue size is needed for different woods and topcoats: I can now prepare each one. This is important, since glue size is needed to prevent blotching in various woods, such as pine and cherry. I never knew that different topcoats mandate different sizes. For that matter, I never knew how to prepare or apply it. Oils, urethanes, and shellacs also get the same comprehensive treatment.

Every chapter has complete materials lists. Masaschi includes information on different brushes, exact formulas for glue size, fillers, etc. At the back o the book, she also gives a comprehensive spreadsheet listing where she gets the products mentioned, so you are not limited to just one supply house.

Overall, Masaschi has written an excellent reference. Since I have now committed this review to writing, I'll have to shelve the book in the club library and buy my own. I'll also award this book the coveted Five Brushes!!

Teri Masaschi is a frequent contributor to woodworking magazines, and her facility with wood finishing comes through in this book.

The 7 chapters cover the full gamut of finishing techniques, albeit in a general fashion. The book is written in an easy to read format, amplified with good photographs. There is also a glossary and list of product sources that readers will find useful.

I'd recommend it as a first finishing book for novice woodworkers. Like the subtitle implies, it deals with the "how-to's" of finishing without going into the "whys". Once you get to the point of wanting to know more about the underpinnings of finishing you'll want to get Bob Flexner's "Understanding Wood Finishing" (also available from Fox Chapel Publishing).

Masaschi's book begins with a brief introduction to the concepts, tools and equipment in finishing. She then shows six pages of photos of finished projects. This is followed by a concise overview of wood preparation (sanding, sealing and pore filling). The next chapter covers colouring (pigments, dyes, blending colours, and glazes). The fifth chapter talks about the most common finishes you are likely to be using - varnish, shellac and lacquer. She also covers brushing, wiping and rubbing out. Chapter six gives eight common finishing recipes for cherry, walnut, oak and mahogany. The book ends with tips and techniques for dealing with those inevitable repairs you need to make.