Re: Thanks guys
William Duffield, on the Cohansey
>If you use your bench like I use my bench, it won't look good on the top for very long :^) But that's OK, because it's really easily fixed, if only you have time to let it dry after you've reapplied the danish oil, it'll look ok again, for a while. In the meantime, an oil and varnish finish does an OK job of releasing glue spills.
OTOH, if you can do it, a rag, wetted with whatever solvent is appropriate for your glue of choice, works well enough for wiping off spills, if you use it soon after setting the clamps in place. Most of them aren't effective at attacking a fully polymerized varnish, while one or another will quickly decimate most other finishes you might choose. For example, you need water to clean up hide glue and aliphatic resins, but it attacks wax and shellac (and bare wood). You need acetone for epoxy, but it attacks lacquers. Acetone also works well for uncured polyurethane glue, and I have been somewhat successful cleaning that up with petroleum distilates and similar solvents (mineral spirits, naphtha, WD-40, turpentine etc.) as well, if used quickly enough, but these also remove wax. Any alcohol, including ethanol, methanol, toluene, isopropol, etc. will attack shellac. Also, ammonia, for example Windex, and many acids will attack shellac. While not many solvents you might throw on top of your bench will attack a polyurethane varnish, many forumulations of poly scratch easily and crack easily from a sharp blow, and are subsequently difficult to repair because more poly does not bond well to a previous coat of fully cured poly.
I don't have any recommendations regarding urea-formaldehyde and resorcinol, because I don't use them. Maybe someone else can help?
