qt Zinsser 854 Clear SealCoat Universal Sanding Sealer

I recently purchased two matching antique bed frames made out of wood with a headboard and footboard each. They were quite dirty but otherwise in good shape. After cleaning them up, I wanted to restore the finish and add a layer of polyurethane for extra protection. After researching, I decided to start off with SealCoat since I did not know what the original stain or sealant was made of. I was so glad I found this product after searching "wood sealer" on Amazon, because you can't really find it in stores.This sealant goes on quite easily with a brush, and truly adheres to any surface, coating, or sealant. It also does a magical job of restoring a finish- my project was looking rough after a thorough clean with magic erasers, simple green, and a light sanding. After the first coat, any hazy spots, scratches, or weird water rings completely disappeared and it dried to a beautiful finish.I ended up doing two coats with a light sand (220 or finer) in-between coats. This SealCoat doesn't provide a super durable finish, so I opted to add two coats of water based polyurethane on top. The polyurethane adhered wonderfully to the SealCoat even without sanding. The project turned out great and I'm so happy I found this product which was very easy to use and produced an amazing result.

This stuff has so many uses. My biggest hobby is woodworking and I have found so many uses for this stuff. I use it on the top of my assembly bench to keep the hardboard surface smooth and looking good. It makes any type of water based liquids I might spill absorb a lot slower so I have time to wipe them up before it completely destroys my work surface. This stuff works perfectly as a wood conditioner. If you are staining a wood that is prone to blotching. A cut of this stuff with some denatured alcohol with do the trick. You can also use it when you are staining really porus wood species to control the amount of the stain that is absorbed into the wood. Its uses do not stop there though. A couple coats of this stuff on some MDF and it seals it up quite nicely. If you are painting any type of wood and you want a glassy smooth finish. Use this as your initial coating. Sand it smooth then prime it or paint directly over it. You can also use Zinsser Shellac based primer for this, but this seal coat is a little easier to work with. This seal coat does not add that unwanted yellow hue to any wood. You can also tint it with dye. I always keep few quarts of this stuff in my shop.

Technically it's not needed to use additional products under polyurethane clear coats. However, laying down the first water-based clear coat on bare dry wood has some challenges. The grain is going to pop up, necessitating additional sanding. The dry wood is going to suck the water and the clear coat is going to dry extra quick, not allowing it to self-level as well as it could. It will take up to several hours for a polyurethane clear coat layer to cure enough for the next coat. Good clear coats are costly. Putting down more layers of conversion varnish would require mixing another batch with hardener, contributing to additional waste.Seems like this product is best applied by liberally splashing it onto the wood and gently rubbing around with a rag. Trying a brush or pad is too slow and it's going to gum up within seconds. Sanding is somewhat annoying because shellac sticks to the sandpaper discs easily. However, there won't be any isocyanate dust. There's less harsh chemicals: MSDS says this has just shellac, ethanol and isopropanol.Applying shellac before water-based clear coat does change the color of the final finish a bit, making it look slightly more like oil based polyurethane was used

Wearing as expected

Rustoleum Zinsser 854 is the best prestain ever. I've been trying to stain pine baseboard using various stains. I've tried everything with little success and was about to just accept my best effort. I'm glad I tried this stuff first. Things I tried included many sanding combinations (best was 80 followed by 120 then 180). I tried with and without MinMax prestain and other prestains. That stuff is useless and just washes out the colors altogether. I tried water to open the pores in the wood. I tried Gel Stain. I tried everything. At best I got mediocre looking results.Then I tried the Zinsser 854 SealCoat Shellac as a prestain. I sanded by hand 80, 120, 180 grit 3M paper. Use sandpaper, not sanding sponges. When I used sponges, even though they claim to be 80, 120, 180 grit, the wood did not take the stain. Then apply a thin coat of Zinsser 854 diluted 1:1 with denatured alcohol with a brush. Don't apply a thick coat as instructed on the can. Just wet the brush a bit and make sure to cover the whole piece (it's almost clear, so it is easy to miss spots). I let it dry 30 minutes and applied Rustoleum Dark Walnut stain using a pad. Ignore the instructions on the can where it says to wipe on thick and wait 5 minutes. Wipe it on and get it to the texture you want right away. Other stains may work differently of course.After struggling for weeks I could not believe how beautiful the results were. In the picture, the top piece is the one with the Zinsser 854 Shellac prestain and the bottom is my previous best effort. Both pieces came from the same piece of pine baseboard. I almost did not want to apply a poly sealer, bit I applied the Rustoleum Polyurethane Satin and it got even more beautiful.Why this stuff is not available in stores is a mystery (the Shellacs there don't work for this purpose), but amazon to the rescue.

I use this to seal wood before epoxy pours. It works great at sealing the wood so that I have less bubbles.