Craft Coat (CC) - A new water-based finishing product

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Crashmph

Crashmph

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I have enough testers now... I will keep you all posted how this "turns out". Additionally, if you want to share your sample with friends to get a bigger pool of results, feel free to do so.

Please post your results to this thread.

Hello IAP,

I am working with a cousin to help out with a product of his; he owns Eco Advance. The product is called Craft Coat (I have been calling it CC for short). It is a water-based finishing product similar to Wood Turners Finish (WTF), but it produces a much nicer and durable finish like a CA finish does.


About Echo Advance:
Eco Advancements, Inc. is dedicated to the advancement of environmentally safe coatings, sealers, paints and cleaners. Our company is committed to the development and manufacturing of products that help preserve the environment without sacrificing performance. All Eco Advance products, including raw materials, and even packaging are made in the USA.

We have our own in-house R&D and quality control departments and a substantial portion of our resources are continually invested in to new products and technologies. Among our team's accomplishments is the invention of the first waterborne oil modified coatings to surpass EPA environmental requirements. We also invented the revolutionary instant-cure UV coatings technology.

Our products are manufactured, stored and shipped from a 40,000 square foot state-of-the art manufacturing facility centrally located in Arkansas. We are one of the fastest growing eco products companies in the country and our products are widely sold and used in the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Malaysia.
CraftCoat-Quart-505x595.jpg
I have been using CC on my pens, stoppers, pepper grinders, etc... for several months now. For me, CC has produced a very shinny and durable finish the same as a CA finish. It works especially well on oily woods like cocobolo. I did my own blind testing with pens finished with CA and pens finished with CC. I have passed these pens around to friends and turners to ask for then to find a difference, and none has been found in the finished product.

CC is a water based product and does not have the adverse side effects skin and eye irritant. It can be applied similarly to how CA is applied on the lathe in layers minus any accelerate or boiled linseed oil (BLO), or it does very well as a dip solution. If you wash your bushings with warm soapy water soon after application, all of the dried CC finish will wash right off.

Here is the website description for CC:
"Craft Coat is a waterborne linseed oil modified wood finish that self-crosslinks when exposed to oxygen to develop an extremely durable film that exhibits outstanding scratch, mar, water, and chemical resistance. It has the depth and gloss of an oil modified urethane (O.M.U.) and is formulated to ensure maximum protection on any type of wood, especially hard-to-coat dense and oily exotic hardwoods. It exhibits excellent adhesion on all types of wood including exotic and naturally oily woods that typically require preparation before coating. Craft Coat does not have a solvent base so it dries very quickly and is sandable in 1-1/2 to 2 hours."

Right now it is available for purchase form his site for $26/qt. That is cheaper than WTF from Woodcraft by a few bucks. It is available in a Gloss, Semi-Gloss, and Satin. It does not matter with one you use for pens, stoppers, and such as the typical wet-sand finish will gloss any of them. If you want to use it for other projects as a clear coat sealant, then you can pick out your desired shine.
The sandable times listed are only for dip times. If applied in layers like a CA finish, the try dry times are very short.

Disclaimer: As to not skew any possible results, I will not be posting any of my pens with this finish at this time.

I am looking for 12 volunteers with good experience at CA finishing to test and review this product. I am specifically targeting people who are good at CA finishing but tired of the fumes from the CA process. The volunteers will be shipped a bottle of the CC product free of charge to finish some pens, stoppers, or other turned projects with it. I am looking for you honest assessment of the product.

I am looking for information the following areas:
· Finish quality
· Odor/fumes during process
· Ease of application
· Time for completion of application of finish
· Method used for application (dip, layered, etc…)
· What did you use the finish on (pens, stoppers, etc...)
· Feel free to add any other information you deem appropriate to the review

I will start a new thread for the review results when the samples have shipped. Please PM me your contact details. If any others have used this product in the past, please post your experiences with it as well.

Thank you,
Michael Hardin
 
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Wow, this sounds really cool. I'm excited about the different alternatives coming out.

Your claim of ca like shine is interesting. This has been the shortcoming of many of the alternatives in the past, IMO.

There just doesn't seem anything quite as impressive as ca. Although I've been somewhat impressed with pens plus. If durability comes through.

May I ask, with cc, how many coats do you apply on the lathe to get the desired build? The polishing process is then similar to ca? MM and or liquid polish?

Very interesting!
 
How does this product work on larger turnings like bowls?

I would be willing to give it a try...and I have a friend (that also works at Woodcraft) that uses WTF almost exclusively on bowls. I bet he would give you a fair review for that use.
 
cc test

Michael, I would be interested in trying it. I do alot of Ca finish and have been turning for about 5 years. Pens, wine stoppers, and other small projects. Regards, Dave
 
I'd be interested. I have developed a reaction to the CA fumes that puts me out of commission for about 3 days (almost like flu symptoms accompanied with a rash) every time I use it so I have pretty much quit turning pens that need a finish. I have some new blanks turned and standing by for a finish so I have been looking for other options.
Eugene.
 
If you need another tester, I would be interested in doing so. I have to buy very expensive odorless CA because the regular stuff affects me adversely. I have used WTF and Doctor's finishes, with some limited success. I still like the CA shine, but not the fumes.
Dave Bledsoe
 
I'll give it a go. I've done my time with CA and after perfecting my technique I've actually moved away from it for various reasons. I've been testing various alternatives but still not 100% happy with anything I've tried yet.
 
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I tried Wood Turners finish fromWoodcraft and didn't like the results … I would love to tryout 'CC' finish.
 
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I didn't see you mention time between coats. One advantage with CA is there is only around 30 seconds between coats. After the last coat of CA is applied I usually let mine cure for a while so the time after the last coat is not a big issue. The time between coats is what I would really look for. If I have to wait 1/2 hour between coats then that is a long time to finish a pen.

Sounds really interesting though.
 
Hello IAP,

First, thank you for taking your time to evaluate a new product. We greatly appreciate your time and energy spent with us. Please place your product reviews and comments to this thread.

We are looking for information the following areas:
· Finish quality
· Odor/fumes during process
· Ease of application
· Time for completion of application of finish
· Method used for application (dip, layered, etc…)
· What did you use the finish on (pens, stoppers, etc...)
· Feel free to add any other information you deem appropriate to the review

Once again, thank you for your help.

OK, now to the good part... we have some volunteers!

There was a mixture of PMs and Posts to weed through. I had to check the times of posts and PMs to find the first 12 to respond. I am sorry that all of you could not make the list. We are trying to work with the Bash committee to give out prizes of CC next month.

Here is the list and the times the responded.

  1. alankulwicki 8:59
  2. MarkD 9:20
  3. Dan Masshardt 9:21
  4. lorbay 9:21
  5. The Penguin 9:23
  6. dudstuen 9:31
  7. parklandturner 9:36
  8. ElMostro 9:40
  9. LanceD 9:46
  10. Nellieteach 9:51
  11. dbledsoe 10:11
  12. Carl Fisher 10:13
 
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I would love to try it. If I don't have good ventilation when using CA, I have strong respiratory problems. A water based product would be great.
 
I can't wait for the results, and you have a great test team:cool:. I'm with the crowd that LOVES the ca look...and am fairly good at ca'ing but still have problems once in a while and hate the fumes of ca! Will be looking forward to the results:cool::cool:
 
It's been a day since you selected the test team so where are the test results??? :-)

I'm very interested in hearing about how this goes especially regarding durability, time between coats and if the wood still looks and feels like wood (my chief complaint with the plastic look and feel of CA).

Mike
 
kyaggie said:
It's been a day since you selected the test team so where are the test results??? :-) I'm very interested in hearing about how this goes especially regarding durability, time between coats and if the wood still looks and feels like wood (my chief complaint with the plastic look and feel of CA). Mike
Click to expand...

He said that others can't tell the difference from ca, so it will be interesting to see.
 
kyaggie said:
It's been a day since you selected the test team so where are the test results??? :-)

I'm very interested in hearing about how this goes especially regarding durability, time between coats and if the wood still looks and feels like wood (my chief complaint with the plastic look and feel of CA).

Mike
Click to expand...

Ha Ha. Your funny unless you are the mail man and have delivered the product to the team personally. :biggrin::biggrin:
Lin
 
kyaggie said:
It's been a day since you selected the test team so where are the test results??? :-)

I'm very interested in hearing about how this goes especially regarding durability, time between coats and if the wood still looks and feels like wood (my chief complaint with the plastic look and feel of CA).

Mike
Click to expand...

You guys are too funny... LOL

As for the look and feel of wood, if only a thin coat or two are used, the wood feel and look can still be there, but a proper finish with CC will look and feel just like CA does.

Michael
 
Crashmph said:
kyaggie said:
It's been a day since you selected the test team so where are the test results??? :-)

I'm very interested in hearing about how this goes especially regarding durability, time between coats and if the wood still looks and feels like wood (my chief complaint with the plastic look and feel of CA).

Mike
Click to expand...

You guys are too funny... LOL

As for the look and feel of wood, if only a thin coat or two are used, the wood feel and look can still be there, but a proper finish with CC will look and feel just like CA does.

Michael
Click to expand...

Can you outline the steps for what you are calling a proper finish so we have a baseline for testing?
 
Ligget said:
I would like to buy some but the UPS Saver option is $125, is this the only option available?
Click to expand...

Other options are now available for international shipping.

Additionally, I changed the link on the first post to link to the main page for CC rather than the Qt can page originally linked by mistake.
 
CC finishing Steps

Hi All,

I will try to get proper tutorial for CC usage for the library and a video as soon as I can.

As most of you all know, there are several ways to put a finish on a pen. I will outline my method of finishing a pen with CC.

Note: I turn between centers for everything with tube sizes above 7mm, and fishing on the lathe is done between centers for all my blanks.

Here are "my" steps to a glass finish with CC:

  1. Sand prep your blank just like you normally would up to 2000 grit.
  2. Wipe down the blank with DNA.
  3. Remove busings/mandrel and place blank gently between centers without metal bushings (or use some of the derlin finishing bushings)
  4. Using a 3"x3" cotton cloth folded in half, add three to four drops of CC to the cloth
  5. Apply the cloth to the blank with lathe at approximately 1800 RPMs. Rub back and forth on the blank until it starts to feel "tacky" and remove cloth immediately.
  6. Wait 30-45 seconds.
  7. Repeat step 5-6 eight times.
  8. There should not be any major "ridges" on the blank. Wet sand finish the pen: Gently wet sand your blank with MM up to 12k grit. Alternatively you can gently wet sand to 2000 grit and use Woodcrafts four step turners polish.
  9. Then buff with a Beall 3 wheel buffer.
As you can see there are areas that you can modify to suit your own abilities with whatever tools and products you already have. I am sure some of you will think of your own ways to modify this finishing process just like there are several CA finishing methods.


We are looking forward to hearing back from your experiences with CC, and we would love to see your pictures of its uses.


Thank You,
Michael
 
Ok, so it's basically the same application process as most CA finishes.

Just needed to know a rough starting point for a baseline to work with. Thanks!
 
Carl Fisher said:
Ok, so it's basically the same application process as most CA finishes.

Just needed to know a rough starting point for a baseline to work with. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Exactly Carl! CC is applied very similarly to CA. If you you take away the fumes, burned fingers, fingers stuck together, BLO, etc... :rolleyes:

And those reasons alone is why I like CC. It works well dipping my wine stoppers too!

Michael
 
1800 is fast!

No pressure on application then ? Apply like ca not friction polish.

Do you wait substantially longer before sanding then between coats?

Thanks.
 
Dan Masshardt said:
1800 is fast!

No pressure on application then ? Apply like ca not friction polish.

Do you wait substantially longer before sanding then between coats?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Just like a CA finish with regard to the pressure applied. YMMV...

hewunch said:
What is the gas off time? IOW, how long until the volatiles get stable or the finish "cures"?
Click to expand...

I have not experienced any "gas off" issues with CC. I finish pens and assemble them rather quickly. I have not had any adverse affects thus far. Nothing like the gas off of a CA finish.
 
Also,

There is another thread started by William Menard with his recent experience with Call Coat.

Craft Coat and Call Coat are the exact same product manufactured by Eco Advance. Call Coat was the original name, but when Eco Advance learned of several other uses of the product, the name was changed to Craft Coat, CC for short. Call Coat will eventually be phased out in favor of the Craft Coat name.

Thanks,
Michael
 
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