Yes, fully cured polyurethane is fine for incidental food contact, the kind where a plate sits on a dining table or a bowl rests on a counter.
Two questions decide whether polyurethane is food safe on your project: has the finish actually cured, and what is that surface going to do.
You should buy the circular saw first. It runs around $44 to $120 against around $300 for the cheapest table saw worth owning.
It breaks down full plywood sheets better than any table saw does, and you carry it to the wood instead of wrestling the wood to it.
A true water based polyurethane dries clear and stays clear. Oil based polyurethane starts amber and keeps darkening for years.
So will water based polyurethane yellow on you? The film will not, but the project still can.
Yes, wood stain goes bad, but not the way the date on the can implies.
Oil-based pigment stain that still pours and stirs smooth is usually fine years past that date, while water-based stain has a real and much shorter life that freezing, contamination, or a skin on top can end permanently.
Framing nailer for anything structural: studs, sheathing, decks, sheds, fences. Finish nailer for anything you will look at afterward: baseboard, door casing, crown molding.
Neither one substitutes for the other, and no single gun covers both jobs.
Yes, you can burn pine in a fireplace, as long as it is seasoned and you are honest about which fireplace you have. The creosote warning your neighbor gave you is the wrong worry. Research settled it, and pine resin is not the culprit. The risk that belongs to pine is narrow: a resin pocket … [Read More…]
Three coats covers most interior wood, floors want four, and low-wear trim can stop at two. The exact answer to how many coats of polyurethane you need is printed on the can you already bought, and the labels do not all agree.
One oil-based can lists two to three coats and names three as the durability number. Another interior oil-based label calls two the minimum. A water-based floor product demands four.
Search how much weight can plywood hold and the answers fight each other. One page says 35 pounds per square foot, the next says 79, a third insists on 164, and a fourth swears a 3/4-inch sheet holds 50 to 100 pounds.
They cannot all be right, and yet in a way they all are. Plywood has no single weight limit.
Ask five people how much weight can a 4×4 hold and you get wildly different answers: 420 pounds, 500 pounds, 6,000 pounds, 7,000 pounds.
They are all correct, which is exactly why the internet is so confusing on this. The numbers only fight because a 4×4 does three very different jobs.
You’ve got a stack of old deck boards leaning against the fire pit, and the question is simple: light them up, or haul them off?
No. You should never burn pressure treated wood, not in a fire pit, a wood stove, or a bonfire, and not because the boards are old.