The Newest Release From Clean Armor. 716 Wiping Varnish! Part 2

Hey, I'm Pierce from Light and Done and this is part two in the new 716 series of finishes. I promised to get a little non-conventional in this video. So, let's dive in. Today, we're going to be exploring the world of flattening agents. The goal today is to show you just how to reduce the sheen of any Clean Armor finish to a very low gloss level, but today we're going to be focusing on 716.

The idea for this video comes out of my love for the new 716, but also my love for flat finishes. Please make sure to stay tuned until the end where we show you the side-by-side final sheen results of our test. Flattening agents are typically a powder or a liquid that you can add to almost any finish to reduce the sheen level. These agents contain a variety of finely ground material that incorporates into the finish and helps scatter the light that hits the cured finish, making it look less glossy. We have three options to test today. A flattening agent by Mohawk that is suspended in a solvent, talcum powder, and silica powder. The Mohawk is the only product that's designed for this purpose, but let's see how it holds up against some of these other homemade options. First, we're going to make sure that these flattening agents are thoroughly mixed into the clean armor. We're going to be making three batches and applying them side by side to show the level of flatness that we can achieve with each combination. We're going to be starting out with 1 oz of Clean Armor 716 and adding a reasonable amount of flattening agent to each batch and thoroughly mixing them in. All right. For this mohawk, I'm going to be adding 5 milliliters. For the talcum powder, I'm going to go with half of a teaspoon. I'm going to do the exact same for the silica powder.

Right off the bat, I'm noticing that the talcum powder is dissolving into the Clean Armor 716 very easily. Of course, this dissolved in really well. The silica powder is really hard to get into solution. It is working. It's just taking a second. It's also thickening the Clean Armor 716

here. Yeah, it's getting a little bit thick. I mean, it is a thickening agent. It says it right on the right on the front of the can. So, this stuff stinks. It's got a lot of VOCC's in it. There's the clean armor with the talcum powder. Looks great. looks just milky, but it has a great consistency to it. And of course, there's our baseline. 716 just as is. All right, let's clear all this off. And I'm going to start over here for our baseline. And then we're going to get this cured up. While these cups sit for a bit, we're going to finish a section of our top using just 716 in its native form. For the baseline for this comparison, we're going to do it just like we did in the other videos by sanding to 500 and applying two coats to the wood. We saturate the first layer and work it into the grain, buff it off, and cure it. We're going to sand between the coats with 500 and apply again using the same exact technique. For each of the three samples, we will follow this exact procedure and compare the results. Put a little rag over here so that the light can't get to them and let's cure them all. 

Before we get to the results, I have a teaser alert. I didn't have time in this video to add this option, but I'm currently working on another video where we flatten this 716 by combining it with other Clean Armor products to create a hybrid that cures just like the 716 and boosts the durability while keeping the same ease of a wiping varnish and lowering the sheen. It's going to be cool, trust me. All right, here are the results. What I want you to focus on is this white bar right here. It's a light that's above me and it's see as I move it kind of moves back and forth right here. That's what we're going to look at to see what the sheen change is here. So that's the 716 right there as is. And I would say that this is a satin finish or very close to a satin finish. Maybe a little bit on the dull side, but it really is a satin finish. It is not high gloss. Not even a little bit. Now watch this bar change from here to the talcum powder and you'll see really quickly. Let's go back again. There it is. And it disappears. I mean, it's there, but really it's not there. This talcum powder gave us a very, very dull finish. And it feels exactly the same. I don't feel a difference between these whatsoever. And let's keep moving down the line. So, there's our light. There's our bar light. We're moving over. And the the flattening paste from Mohawk, it is a little bit shinier than the talcum powder. Let's go back and forth again so you can see the difference. I'd say that talcum powder is looking pretty good at this point. I don't like this stuff. I have to say it really stunk up my shop. It's just it stinks. And obviously it doesn't do that great of a job of flattening cuz I had to add a lot of it just to get to this level. And then let's go from here to this to the uh silica thickener the system 3.

It's about the same as Mohawk. I don't see a real difference. Again, feels the same. I don't see a real difference there. But I would say that my winner, my clear winner is going to be talcum powder. If you guys want to reduce your finish and get it down to a nice dull sheen, this is the one for you. Um, I really do like it as right out of the can. The 716 is great. And I really do like it the way it is. And I mean, look at that open grain. I mean, it's just incredible. I've never seen a finish that's been able to cure like this this quickly and is this easy to apply. Also, you notice there's no brush strokes anywhere in here. Zero. It's just grain. There's there's no overlap marks. There's nothing. When you buff it off, you get rid of all of that. And all you leave is this just amazing grain. Well, there you have it. Talcum powder wins hands down at flattening clean armor very effectively. I like the fact it was easy to dissolve into the finish, was a very reasonable cost, and didn't have any VOCC's to stink up my shop. If you like this type of content and want to see more, please consider subscribing. It keeps me motivated and the videos flowing.