| Q: I painted a wooden buffet using milk paint and applied Varathane Professional clear satin finish over it, hoping to have a flat, or matte, protected finish. The result has been a fairly glossy black finish. Is there anything I can do to get a dull black protected finish to the item?
A: The least shiny finish Varathane offers is satin, and while there are companies offering matte polyurethane, they are few and far between. If you can find one, by all means top the piece with that, but short of that let me suggest a few options. First, make sure you stirred the polyurethane very well. The flatting agent in satin finish tends to settle to the bottom, leaving the finish above it shinier that it is supposed to be. If you have already used some of it without stirring sufficiently, go back and do that now. The next coat from that can will be even duller, since there will be more flatting agent than is meant for satin, and you may end up with exactly what you want. Another option is to dull the finish, once it is fully cured and dry, by rubbing it with 0000 steel wool. Finally, I hate to point this out at this late date, but real milk paint, all by itself with nothing atop it, starts out matte, so in truth, you really didn’t need to do anything but paint to get the look you wanted.
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